


The Widening Gyre

by maggief



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Community: paperlegends, Gen, Occurrence of supposed suicide, Reference to Child Abuse, Reincarnation, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-05
Updated: 2012-09-05
Packaged: 2017-11-13 15:42:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 35,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/505088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggief/pseuds/maggief
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur's bored to death by his mindless job, but that's all there is to life, right? He thinks so, until he meets Merlin and finds out that he really is the King of legend, and not just his namesake, and they have to save the world (of course). This is a story of the struggles of reincarnation, if magic has a place in the modern world, and what it really means for our heroes trying to live their lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Widening Gyre

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as part of Paperlegends Merlin Big Bang 2012. I would like to thank my amazing artist [equal-to-k](http://equal-to-k.livejournal.com/30645.html) for her beautiful artwork. Please go check out her work and give her lots of love because she deserves it.
> 
> Title taken from WB Yeats' poem The Second Coming.
> 
> Warnings: Violence, child abuse, suicide, blood, character death(s) (not A/M), reference to alcoholism. None are particularly graphic, but if you would like more info before reading, please drop me a message, here or on tumblr ([iameverywhere](http://iameverywhere.tumblr.com/)).

When Arthur Pendragon is seven years old, he asks his father where his mother is. They’d been discussing family trees in school, and their homework is to draw their own. Arthur isn’t sure about the whole tree, so thinks he should start with the most pressing branch. After all, in school they told them that every child must have a mother and father, and well he’s only got the one, so where’s the other?

It’s the first time that Arthur remembers his father hitting him. He gets shouted at by his teacher in school the next day for not completing his homework. He doesn’t say anything, he just sits there in silence, and he doesn’t ask his father about his mother again. It doesn’t matter anyway.

It’s not that his father hates him, but Arthur is an easy target; too young to fight back. His father drinks a lot, finds it hard to hold down a steady job. If anything, he’s indifferent to Arthur, his presence nothing more than a nuisance in his perfectly crafted isolation. Hitting Arthur isn’t out of hatred, or anger; Uther grew up in a generation where it was ok to hit your children. His father hit him, and so did his father before him. It wasn’t child abuse, it was just a fact, although it was true that Uther was a little behind the times. It wasn’t about Arthur at all, he was just there. Uther could be hitting a wall, or a scarecrow, for all the emotions it invoked. His son meant nothing to him, just a houseguest, another face in the crowd.

When Arthur is 13 he’s no longer too young or too weak to fight back. His father hits him one day, for something trivial, and Arthur hits him right back, straight across his jaw. And that’s it; Uther never hits him again.

Arthur tries to spend as little time as possible at home. He and Uther live on a council estate, but it’s not one of the really rough ones. There are a lot of single mothers with small children, and in the summer (and the spring, and the autumn, and most of the winter too really), then can be found playing outside, safely ensconced from the rest of the world behind the metal gates of the estate. They have little bikes, mostly with stabilisers on, and they race each other up and down the pavement. Arthur always finds himself stepping on stray Transformers, but it makes him smile.

He tries hard in school. It’s one of the shit ones, to be honest. Where the teachers spend their break times smoking, and watching the children fight, rather than making any real effort to break them apart from each other. The weakest students are ridiculed by their classmates, but at least the teachers try to make some grounds in improving them. If you’re unfortunate enough to be smart then not only would you be bullied by your classmates, but you’d also be ignored by your teachers, who have neither the time, resources, nor inclination to encourage the brightest students to reach their full potential. That’s just the way it is.

Luckily for Arthur he is neither of the two. He blends into the background mostly, and after his growth spurt at 13 and his generous helping of muscle, no one tries to dunk his head down the toilet anymore. He doesn’t really have any friends and it doesn’t bother him. He keeps to himself, and he likes it that way. If he spoke to people, he’d have to answer questions, and ask them questions in return. He’d have to act like he cared, and he really doesn’t.

When Arthur is 16, Uther tells him he is moving, moving out of Reading, heading up north back to where his family is from originally. Arthur tells him that it’s a really shitty time to move; he’s worked hard for his GCSEs, and if he manages to do well in them, he’s got a place waiting for him at the best college in town for his A Levels, he doesn’t want to have to move.

When Uther hands him some cardboard boxes and tells him to start packing a week later, Arthur tells his father, “I’m not going.”

He regards his son coolly, before shrugging.

“Suit yourself. I’ll go on my own.”

And he does.

Arthur moves into foster care. He gets placed in a home with 3 other teenagers. The “mother”, Marie, is kind enough, but Arthur’s never had a mother, and he is never quite sure how he’s supposed to act around her. The other kids there are alright, the two boys are twins and thick as thieves. They hardly ever speak to Arthur, preferring to keep to themselves, and Arthur suspects they might be doing drugs. He never asks, and he never finds out. The other occupant of the house is an absolute godsend. Her name is Morgana and she’s beautiful, sarcastic, the absolute queen of dry insults. Arthur doesn’t fancy her, but he still sort of wants to marry her.

Morgana is the same age as Arthur, and enrolled in the same sixth form college for September. By the time the beginning of term rolls around, Arthur has been in his new home for a month, and he and Morgana are already firm friends. The college is more upscale than the school Arthur has just left, and the two of them, as the “weird foster kids” are looked down on by everyone else there. But that’s ok, they have each other, and that’s enough for Arthur at least.

They’re in two of their classes together; Chemistry and General Studies. Arthur is also taking Maths and History. Morgana is taking French and English and always makes fun of Arthur for studying maths, calling him a geek. Arthur suspects she’s only doing Chemistry on the off chance that they might learn how to blow things up, or make some really cool concoctions. Morgana’s had a harder childhood than Arthur, although she barely ever talks about it.

“If we talk about it too much, Arthur, it becomes real.”

“But it is real, Morgs, it’s the past.”

“Yes, and it should stay there. It doesn’t belong here.”

However, sometimes she gets this far away look in her eyes. Not the glazed-over drug use look that the twins have, but something darker, something deeper. He leaves her alone at these times, and eventually she comes back to him, usually with some sharp comment about someone’s awful hair, or horrendous trousers. Arthur always makes sure to laugh.

Over the coming year Arthur and Morgana are barely ever apart. They walk to school together in mornings, and spend their study periods and lunch times together. They bunk off sport together, although sometimes Arthur goes running in the evenings instead. The stay up late doing their homework, and just talking about everything and nothing together. They fall asleep in each other’s beds several times, and it’s Arthur’s first real experience of intimacy. He suspects it is Morgana’s too. They are good for each other. There’s nothing sexual about it, a childish innocence almost, to the way they wake up curled around each other, like two small animals sheltering from the cold and hibernating for winter.

Morgana wants to be an actress. She wants everyone in the world to know her name. Arthur wants that for her too. For himself, he isn’t sure. He‘d like to go to university, first. Maybe he’ll figure out the next step when he gets there. In the summer after their AS Levels, Morgana is talent spotted by a model agency when she’s shopping in Topshop. Arthur’s there too, being dragged along as usual. They can’t afford anything, as usual too, and Morgana will probably secrete something on herself, or Arthur before they leave. A present, she’ll say, I deserve it, and Arthur never contradicts her.

This particular day ends a little differently though. For a split second, Arthur thinks they’ve been busted, that the excuse me they hear behind them is a security guard, and he turns round, light on the balls of his feet and ready to run. He’s not faced with some burly, flat faced security guard though, but a young woman. Probably in her early twenties, she’s immaculately dressed, long nails painted an electric pink. Arthur and Morgana stare at her in silence, wondering what the hell she wants with them.

“Hi, I’m Suze.”

The two teenagers just stare back at her, neither making a move to introduce themselves. She coughs uncomfortably, before continuing.

“Are you interested in a career in modelling?” She directs her question at Morgana, but she’s giving Arthur furtive, assessing glances out of the corner of her eye. He suddenly feels as though his skin is too small for his body, and he doesn’t like it.

Morgana stares at her still, unable to decide whether this is a joke or not.

“Seriously?” She finally asks.

“Yes. We’re recruiting for a competition here in Topshop today, and you have the exact look we’re trying to find.”

“Really?” Morgana has perked up now.

“Yes, your bone structure is fantastic.” She heads off on a spiel about the competition itself, when and where it will be held, and what the prize is (a modelling contract with Models 1). Arthur tunes them both out but doesn’t move away. Eventually they stop talking and Suze leaves them alone with a cheery ‘see you soon!’

Arthur has never seen Morgana this excited. She’s talking a million miles a minute and her arms are gesticulating widely. She looks more alive than Arthur can ever remember, and he falls in love with her a little bit in that moment.

She talks of nothing else for the next week, until the first round of the competition is upon them. Arthur goes to support her, of course he does, and it’s a sight to behold. Morgana shines, clearly beating the other girls, even if Arthur is a little bit biased. The judges agree with him, and she’s put through to the next round, the final, to be held the next week, and judged by Kate Moss herself. In the coming week Arthur almost wishes it wasn’t the summer holidays, so he could distract Morgana with schoolwork. He supposes that wouldn’t work though, and it would only get neglected, so it’s probably for the best.

Even though Morgana barely sleeps a wink the night before, she’s even more fabulous in the final. The other girls don’t stand a chance, and Morgana wins easily. Kate Moss comes up to congratulate her, and for a second Arthur thinks that Morgana is going to collapse into overwhelmed sobs on the supermodel. Thankfully, she doesn’t, and Arthur manages to extract her before she starts blubbering.

The next couple of weeks before term starts again are spent following Morgana to the model studios, and to her first casting call. She doesn’t get it, and refuses to speak for the rest of the day, not even to Arthur. The next morning though, she is the same as ever. School starts up again the day after, and it’s more of a challenge than usual for Arthur to get Morgana to concentrate on her homework. She’d never been that bothered before, and it had always been Arthur making her sit down and actually do some work, but now she’s completely disinterested. Even when Arthur is there working through their chemistry problem sets, she still won’t pay attention, preferring instead to plan out her career, and her successful move from modelling into acting. Eventually Arthur just lets her copy his homework, although he doesn’t know what she does for the subjects they don’t share. Neither is taking General Studies this year, so it’s only Chemistry classes that they have together now, and Arthur finds himself missing her just a bit; even when they’re together it seems more and more like she’s not really there.

In February, she gets her first contract. It’s for a shoe company, and their new campaign is going to be featured in several women’s glossy magazines. Morgana is beside herself with excitement for the week before the shoot, but afterwards she seems subdued. She stops talking about it so much, stops planning her career in every spare moment. She starts doing her homework again without Arthur having to nag her; she just sits down next to him at the kitchen table one evening and they work quietly together into the night, an easy silence between them.

The day of their A Level results is the day that Morgana’s first ad campaign is due in magazines. It’s also the day she’s found dead in her room. Arthur’s the one to find her. She’s surrounded by a pool of blood, a razor blade left hanging from her limp fingers. There’s no note, and no explanation. Arthur doesn’t know what to think, or feel.

The rest of the summer is a black hole for Arthur. He remembers the funeral, how nobody seemed to care but him. How he stood there in the crematorium and cried, while no one else seemed to notice. The twins didn’t even bother to turn up, and Marie showed no emotion at all. It was like she’d forgotten who Morgana was already. Within a week a new kid had been placed in the house, and it’s like Morgana never even existed. Arthur struggles to hold on to her memory, struggles to remember what is real and what he’s merely dreamt up.

Arthur is the only semblance of real family Morgana had, and her ashes are now in his possession. He is eighteen, and he has never been given the ashes of a dead person before. They tell him to scatter them somewhere meaningful, somewhere Morgana liked. He tries to think of all the places that she loved, but can think of nowhere in the world where she was ever happy. Any peace she ever achieved was a state of mind, not a physical place. Arthur thinks of late nights spent talking together; speaking quietly about their hopes and dreams. This is the Morgana he remembers, but he does not think she would want her ashes left in their foster home.

We hide our secrets at night, and that’s where Arthur keeps all of his. He doesn’t scatter the ashes, he holds onto them instead, and whispers to the night when only the stars can hear him, “I just don’t know what to do with them.” And he doesn’t. He knows of no place where Morgana would want to stay for all eternity. A week after Morgana’s death, and two days after the funeral, Arthur sits alone in a coffee shop. He has nothing to do, and nowhere to be; just waiting for summer to pass. He listens in on the conversations around him, watching the people go by. One conversation in particular catches his attention; a mother and daughter sitting together, talking about death. People don’t normally talk about death in coffee shops, or at any other time. People like to skirt around the issue, to avoid it and talk in metaphors.

“When I’m dead, scatter my ashes at the cove.”

“Sure.” The daughter replies. It’s clear to Arthur that she doesn’t want to have this conversation; that she is uncomfortable with the thought of her mother dying.

“I mean it. I don’t care if it’s still locked up because of erosion. I want you to scale the fence and scatter my ashes into the sea there. Make sure the tide is going out as well.”

“You want me to trespass mother? Break the law?” Her mock-horror almost coaxes a smile out of Arthur. Almost.

“Just don’t get caught. And do be careful.”

“Ok, I will.” And nothing more is said between them.

Arthur’s never seen the sea in real life, and he doesn’t think Morgana had either. He thinks she probably would have liked it though. He likes the idea of her as a wave – constantly moving and evolving, never static. That’s how he wants to remember her, as something beautiful. Not as something cold and dead, surrounded by her own blood, not as a pile of ashes. He thinks that Morgana would have quite liked to be a part of the ocean, and he vows to scatter her ashes there one day. It’s the last promise he ever makes to her, but it’s one that he keeps.

He waits out the rest of the summer, until he can leave Reading and start university. He’s not particularly excited about that, but at least it’s a fresh start. He’s heading to London to study history. He thought about Maths, Economics or Finance, something more practical, but the careers advisor told him that most companies offer graduate schemes with non-specific degree requirements.

“Just get a good degree Arthur, and the world is your oyster. Do something you’ll find interesting, something you’ll enjoy.”

Arthur’s never eaten oysters, and doesn’t know anybody with a degree apart from his teachers. He trusts their word on this though, and so he applies to study history. Cambridge rejects him, but he’s not surprised at that. There are only so many troubled foster kids they’ll take in a year, and he supposes their quota is already full; they like rich public school boys, not people like him. He’s going to London instead; in a city of 7 million people, it’s the best way to stay anonymous, to blend into the background and just get on with his life without anyone interfering.

He never once looks at Morgana’s campaign in magazines, and for the rest of his life he only ever says her name out loud once again.

Just because he doesn’t speak of her though, doesn’t mean she is no longer a part of his life. Her death affects him in more ways than he is conscious of, but he knows one thing; that’s probably the night he stopped bothering, stopped pretending to feel anything at all.

The official verdict was suicide, but Arthur’s never believed that. Something never fit right. It looked like suicide. Morgana had a troubled childhood they told him; it was tragic but not entirely unexpected. Arthur knew her better than anyone else in the entire world though, and he can’t understand why she would take her own life when she had so many dreams for her future. But, there was absolutely no evidence for anyone else being present, or anyone breaking into the house, so what else could it be?

Still though, something is unsettled deep inside Arthur, something that he never gives voice to, never acknowledges. Arthur had been in Morgana’s room a thousand times before, and he knew it as well as his own. Something hadn’t felt right. Something had felt out of place, but even when he looked around he didn’t know what. Some strange feeling, or smell, like when someone left the gas taps on in the chemistry labs at school. It unsettles him, and he never goes in the room again. They have to rip up the carpet to remove all traces of the blood stain, and in the middle of the night Arthur can hear the floorboards creaking from next door, as if someone is pacing across the room, even when it’s empty.

He’s glad to see the back of that house in September and has no intention of returning. It’s clear from the lukewarm goodbye that Marie gives him that he wouldn’t be welcome back anyway. Arthur thinks that she blames him for Morgana’s death, blames him for not preventing it, for a death in her home. He understands, he thinks, that’s what people are like; complicated, impossible to please. No one’s really worth the bother in the end.

Since then he’s tried relationships, tried with men and women when he was at university and afterwards, but it all amounts to nothing in the end. He doesn’t care. He forgets, or they cancel, and his day moves on, and the nights move on, and it just makes no difference. He hasn’t slept with anyone in nearly two years now, can’t even fake interest long enough for a one night stand. It’s strange that it’s affected him like this - it’s not like there was ever anything sexual going on with Morgana; they lived together as siblings, not as lovers. Even though they weren’t actually related by blood, it was still something like family, at least to Arthur it was. He carries her death with him as he goes about his life, and the space it takes up leaves no room for anyone else. He doesn’t mind though, they’d only leave him in the end.

* * *

Several years later, and Arthur has graduated from university; he works for an accountancy firm. Day in, day out, Arthur goes to the office and types in numbers. Numbers, databases, spreadsheets. Every number representing something real; the number of people on the payroll, the gross profit of the company, of the fiscal year, something, anything. At the same time, Arthur can’t help but think that it’s all completely meaningless. He stares at the numbers and they mean nothing to him. Swap this 7 for a 4 and what difference would it make? Add a few extra zeroes, lose this whole column. Would the world be any different? Would anyone even notice?

Every day, exactly the same. Arthur’s alarm goes off, usually at seven am when he’s at home, but more often than not he’s staying in some hotel, at the expense of the company. His alarm probably still goes off at home at seven anyway, he doesn’t bother to change it. It goes off at seven even on a Sunday morning. Sometimes he rolls over and goes back to sleep, sometimes he goes running. Sometimes he lies there and stares at the ceiling, just waiting for night to fall again.

But there’s one night, one night when he actually feels something, up in Scottish highlands. He’d been on secondment to the Edinburgh office; they had the worst staff retention rate in the country, and had needed a qualified accountant to take the lead on a new job for a major company. Arthur had been offered the job by his immediate supervisor just after Christmas, and he couldn’t think of a reason to say no. Six months in Edinburgh, would that affect his life at all? Probably not. So he goes. He rents a flat that overlooks the Royal Mile and never bothers to shut the curtains. He assumes the people opposite must see him naked, maybe they even watch him sleep. He doesn’t care, there’s just something about shutting the world out, and not knowing what’s on the other side that makes him feel uneasy, that leaves him unable to sleep at night.

His first day in the Edinburgh office they give him a new laptop. Not actually new, of course, it’s a clunky old brick and it’s so slow Arthur suspects it’s being powered by mice on little running wheels. He stows it away beneath his desk and he doesn’t touch it again. He forgets to hand it back when he finally leaves, but he’s sure they’ll find it eventually when they remember. Or maybe just bill him for it. He doesn’t care. They give him a swipe card for the canteen, and tell him the password for the photocopy machine. He never uses either.

The next day, he’s introduced to his team; two junior members of the audit department, Ben and Phil. They look fairly earnest, and Arthur finds himself wondering whether they actually enjoy what they do. It seems unlikely, and Arthur is certain once they’ve sat all their accounting exams, and passed through their probationary period they’ll be out of there, just like everyone else.

He’s still there in August, when the Festival rolls around, and he finds it soothing in a way. The project is just about finished by the start of August, and he finds himself working from home more days than not. The office air conditioning is broken, and the British summer seems stiflingly hot that year, dry and suffocating. Instead of days spent in the office that used to stretch out interminably before him, he can now open the windows in his flat that look down onto the Royal Mile below and sit and watch the people in the street below. Watch the fire eaters, and the jugglers, the entertainers. Arthur is entertained, at least for a while. And even if it’s the same show, at the same time, every day, so what if he ignores his work just to lie in bed and listen to the voices rise up from below. So what?

Once the job is finished, he takes the day to climb up Arthur’s Seat. He feels like maybe he should be doing something productive like packing, but his lease doesn’t run out for another week, and the weather is glorious. He feels like he should do something cultural, take in the city, but the castle looms high above the skyline, mocking him as it had done every day as he’d walked to work, and he’s reluctant to set foot in there. He’s been here for half a year, and he hasn’t set foot upon his namesake hill before now either, as if it would jinx him maybe. It’s a beautiful summer’s day though, and the sky is that perfect shade of blue that’s only found in Britain. It reminds Arthur of going back to school after the summer holidays, of new pens and shiny shoes. It’s strange, perhaps, that Arthur always regarded school as freedom, as liberation after the summer weeks spent trapped with only his father for company. Not that he was any company at all, but still. This day smells like that freedom, that taste of possibility when anything could happen.

When he reaches the summit he lies down in the grass. The sun is hot and heavy, and the cool grass is a welcome relief. He closes his eyes and just lets the day wash over him. He can hear children laughing in the distance, and feels ants crawling over his fingers. He doesn’t know how long he lies there for, but eventually he’s aware of something else. A low dull throbbing noise seems to be emanating from the hill itself. Like the beating of a drum. Or a heart. Arthur shakes his head, sure that the noise is some remnant of a dream; he must have drifted off for a second there. When he settles back down the noise has gone.

He can’t shake the feeling that he hadn’t imagined that noise though. It feels like there’s something itching under his skin, only he’s too afraid to scratch it, in fear of what might leak out if he does. He hurries down the hill and back to his flat, and he doesn’t sleep well that night. In the morning he packs up his flat quickly, suddenly eager to leave the city far behind. Something doesn’t feel right, like the blue skies and bright sunshine are merely a facade, and thunder clouds and lightening hide behind.

As keen as he is now to leave Edinburgh, he still has no desire to hurry back to London. He has a week before he’s due back in the office and no other projects to work on before then. And so, as he leaves Edinburgh, he finds himself driving north instead of south, and ends up in Aviemore. It’s a tiny Scottish highlands town, used for skiing in winter and golf in the summer. There are a couple of pubs though, a nightclub even, and a nice hotel where Arthur check himself in. He rarely does much for pleasure, and he’s starting to accumulate something of a nest egg in his bank account; he may as well make use of it.

It’s a Sunday when he arrives, and the town is quiet in the early evening. There are people about though, meandering up and down the main street, heading to dinner, but everyone seems calm and subdued, like they’ve been lulled to sleep by the warm summer night. He takes the car slowly up the long driveway of the hotel, trying to read all the signs for the main entrance, but he still gets lost along the way and finds himself at the health spa. He finds the reception eventually, and books himself into a room until Friday. The receptionists smiles at Arthur in a way that is clearly meant to be flirting, but Arthur ignores her, it’s not worth the effort and that’s not what he came here for.

Although what he did come here for he’s not really sure. He wasn’t ready to return to London just yet, but hadn’t wanted to remain in Edinburgh any longer. The thought of being in either city or any city at all at the moment unsettles him, and he can’t help but think of the dream he had at the top of Arthur’s Seat, of the heart beating from within the hill itself. He shakes himself mentally, vowing not to dwell on that any further. A few days in the countryside is exactly what he needs; the perfect foil to busy city life.

He eats dinner in the hotel restaurant, ordering steak and red wine. The meat is over done slightly, even though he asked for it raw, but he can’t be bothered to complain. He is here to relax, and getting worked up over trivial matters won’t help him to achieve that goal.

The next morning he goes for a swim in the hotel pool before breakfast. He’s a bit worried about leaving his car unattended in the car park, considering that it’s full of most of his worldly possessions, but he supposes that no one’s going to try to steal it in this sleepy highlands town. They’re just things anyway, he could replace most of them without any hassle if he needed to, they don’t mean anything to him.

He books himself a golf lesson for the rest of the morning. He’s never cared for the sport, if it can even be called that, but it’s popular up here and he has nothing better to do. The instructor is fairly good looking, and as he stands behind Arthur to help him reposition his swing, Arthur thinks how easy it would be to make a move, to show some interest. The other man has been watching him intently, eyes lingering for a little too long to be merely friendly, just like the girl at reception the night before. He wonders what it is about this town that makes him so appealing to the locals. The moment passes before he bothers to make a move, and the instructor keeps his distance for the rest of the session. Arthur doesn’t book another lesson.

In the afternoon he explores the few shops in the town. By mid-afternoon he finds himself sitting in the deserted train station. Hardly any trains come up here, and the station reflects that. It hasn’t been modernised, and as Arthur sits there is silence he can almost imagine that it’s fifty years ago, and any minute now a steam train will come billowing into the station, soot and smut clogging up the air. He closes his eyes and feels like he can hear the faint whistle of the train in the distance. When he opens his eyes several minutes later, the magic is gone, and the sky has turned a dark grey colour, heavy with rain. He hurries back to the hotel before the deluge commences and doesn’t leave for the rest of the night.

He passes the next couple of days at the same lazy, meandering place. He meets a couple of businessmen in the hotel gym, and ends up accompanying them for a round of golf. They work for a rival company, but they don’t talk about business at all, so it makes no difference. The three men are older than Arthur, and spend most of the time filling him in about their families and their homes. Arthur keeps quiet about his own life, offering only the bare minimum of details, but it’s not like he has much to share anyway. They beat him easily at golf, Arthur shows absolutely no aptitude for the game, but he takes his defeat with good humour. They invite him to join them for dinner that evening, and he finds himself agreeing before he can think of an excuse not to. They venture into town, eating at a small restaurant just outside the hotel grounds. Arthur thinks it’s going to be a quiet night, possibly some whiskey and cigars, but he realises how wrong he is when his companions order jaegerbombs instead of dessert. It becomes apparent to Arthur that this is their night to blow off steam and really let loose before returning to their wives and children. Although he has no wife or children to return to, Arthur joins in without complaining; he hasn’t been drunk in a while and he finds himself craving the blank slate of memory loss that heavy drinking brings.

He downs all the jaegerbombs his new found friends pass his way and by the time they leave the restaurant, his head is nicely fuzzy, the world starting to blur around the edges. They head down the high street towards The Vault, the town’s only nightclub. The bouncer on the door looks for a moment as though he was going to ID Arthur, which is made even more ridiculous by the fact that once they get inside, the club is full of what seems like all the underage youths this side of Orkney. They head straight to the bar; the short walk seems to have already started to sober them up, and that isn’t what Arthur wants from this night. They get a couple of tequila shots each and some beer to follow, then head out on to the dance floor.

For all that his companions are happily married, they readily find dance partners, all who are at least 10 years too young for them. No one seems to mind anyway and Arthur supposes the local girls are presumably just happy not to be dancing with their pimply peers for once. Arthur tries to join in, but he still isn’t drunk enough and is far too aware of his surroundings, and the awkward way his body moves as he tries to find the rhythm. He gives up after a couple of songs that he doesn’t recognise anyway, and heads back over to the bar to replenish his already empty beer.

That’s when he sees her. Morgana. He’s sure it’s her, with the kind of certainty only the drunk can achieve. He pushes away from the bar immediately, fighting through the crowd towards that unmistakeable sway of long dark hair. She almost turns his way, and her profile comes into view; red lips and pale skin. It’s her.

“Morgana!”

He shouts desperately, but there’s no way she’ll be able to hear him above the pounding of the bass that permeates the air. He’s frantic now, elbowing people out the way, getting a few angry faces in return, but he doesn’t care. Morgana’s at the door now, and he knows that if she leaves he’ll never see her again. As she pushes open the heavy fire escape door (and shouldn’t that set off an alarm?), Arthur swears that she turns to look at him, looks him straight in the eye, and smiles. And then she’s gone, out into the night.

Arthur reaches the door a minute later and hurls himself through it, but outside is completely deserted, there aren’t even any smokers out there. He stares out into the night, before making his way around the corner, where he bumps straight into the bouncer from earlier.

“Watch where you’re going mate.”

“I...”

“You leaving, or you want a stamp?”

“Huh?” Arthur’s brain is far too overwhelmed to focus on the conversation, he needs to find Morgana.

“Do you want me to stamp your hand so you can get back in?” The bouncer is speaking very slowly now, as is Arthur is a complete idiot, or just completely drunk. Maybe he’s both.

“Yeah, sure.” Arthur replies, and holds his hand out, before heading back down the main street, sure that Morgana must have gone this way. He jogs the whole length of Aviemore high street, up and down, but there is absolutely no trace of Morgana. He wants to call out again, but something about the still silence of the night stops him from doing so. There’s an uncomfortable feeling creeping up his spine that has nothing to do with the alcohol, as if shouting would attract someone’s attention, someone he didn’t want to meet out alone in the middle of the night. Someone, or something.

After twenty minutes, Arthur gives up. He contemplates heading back to his hotel and crashing for the night, but his head is filled with memories of Morgana, something that he doesn’t feel able to cope with right then. He heads back to the club, flashing the stamp on his hand and a wry grin to the bouncer. Once back inside, he heads straight for the bar, downing four vodka shots in straight succession before taking a beer out onto the dance floor. His friends are nowhere to be seen, but he doesn’t care. He joins in with a group of locals who seem about his age, no longer worrying about the way his limbs move out of time with the music.

Soon the extra alcohol takes effect, and the noise and people all around him blur into a wash of sight and sound that envelops him like fog. The next thing he’s aware of he has his hips pressed up against one of the boys, lips and hands tangled together. Seeing Morgana earlier has ignited something inside him, and for once he feels a spark of passion. He wants to take this boy to bed, wants to use his tongue, his mouth, his hands, all over his body. He thinks, with startling clarity, that maybe this is what life is all about and he loses himself to all the sensations, being overwhelmed by the noise, the colours, the alcohol pumping through his system, and the feel of this boy’s tongue along his own.

The moment is broken by a loud noise, breaking discordantly across the dance floor. It takes a moment for Arthur to realise that it’s the fire alarm, and the boy is already pulling away, being led out of the club by his friends. The sprinklers come on before Arthur had made it to the door, soaking through the shirt he is wearing within seconds. Once outside Arthur can’t see the boy or his friends anywhere, and disappointment threatens to swallow him, but that’s forgotten in an instance when a wave of nausea hits him. He pushes away from the throng of people leaving the club, retching into the grass off the side of the road.

Once he’s emptied his stomach of most of its contents he sets off towards the hotel, unable to walk in a straight line. He sees another flash of dark hair just as he’s heading down the road and he whirls around immediately, feverishly hoping it’s Morgana again. It’s not, the hair is too short, the figure too masculine. He doesn’t see their face though, only the back of a tall, skinny man. Arthur feels like he should know him but can’t think from where, and can only decide that it must just be his brain playing tricks on him, desperate to see Morgana.

He passes out as soon as his head hits the pillow, and throws up during the night, too out of it to even be properly aware of what’s happening, let alone being able to move to the bathroom. In the morning he wakes far too early, surrounded by a pile of brown vomit, courtesy of the jaegerbombs he can now barely remember. Hot shame courses through his body, mixing uncomfortably with his dry mouth and pounding head. Even though he’s shaking from the alcohol come-down he strips the bed of the sheets and attempts to wash them in the bath; he’s painfully aware that it is someone’s job to clean this room for him, and the last thing they need is to be confronted with his vomit.

He hangs the sheets up on the shower rail, and gets them wet all over again when he showers. Considering they’re still stained an unhealthy brown he supposes that is no bad thing. Once he’s done washing, and having downed a several glasses of water, he feels slightly more human. He packs his bags up quickly and leaves before most people are even awake.

It’s a day sooner than he had planned, and he can’t quite look the girl at reception in the eye as he checks out. He dreads to think what the poor maids are going to think of the state of his room and the bedsheets, even though he’d done his best to wash the worst of the vomit off in the bathtub.

The drive back to London is a long one, but it gives him time to think, time to sort through all the jumbled thoughts and feelings vying for attention in his head. His thoughts are filled with flashes of dark hair, long and short, and the rough stubble of the boy he’d danced with.

He detours through Kendal to pick up some mint cake. He’s never had any before, but he sees the town signposted and finds himself indicating at the junction before he’s really even thought about it. It’s nice to get out and stretch his legs after a solid five hours in the car. Somehow the guy in the shop manages to convince him to buy a wholesale box of mint cake. Arthur has absolutely no idea what he’ll do with that much, but he puts it into the boot of his car regardless. He takes a wrong turn trying to find his way back to the M6, but can’t be bothered to turn around. He figures he’ll hit a main road eventually. After about 10 miles travelling down the A65, he realises it’s starting to get dark and he’s maybe a bit tired too. He didn’t get enough sleep by any means last night, and the lack of decent rest is starting to weigh heavily on his eyelids.

He drives slowly into the next village he passes, keeping his eyes open for a pub. The Marton Arms is your traditional country pub. The village doesn’t have much else; a post office, a shop, a small primary school. But the pub also has rooms to rent, and they’re serving hot food and real ale. It sounds perfect. He parks his car in the small car park, and heads inside to the bar.

“Evening.”

The bar man is old, with fluffy grey hair sticking up every which way, and a jaw of grizzly stubble. The greeting he gives Arthur is warm, and Arthur feels instantly at ease.

“Good evening.”

“You’ll be wanting food I expect?” His accent is thick with Yorkshire vowels, and Arthur has to concentrate to understand the man. He’s never been to this part of the country before, and it comes as a bit of a shock to him.

“Yes, please. And a room, if it’s possible?”

“Aye, yes. You’re in luck, got one left.”

Arthur looks around the room in disbelief. There are several people dotted around the pub, but most of them are clearly locals. The only people he can see who are obiovusly tourists are the American couple seated over by the door. He’d heard them clearly as he’d walked in, discussing the best way to get to “Edinboro” in loud, brash Texan accents. Arthur can’t fathom how all the rooms can be booked up, but he doesn’t question the man, merely thanks him, takes the proffered menu and makes his way to a table in the corner.

The fire is lit even though it’s summer, but the wall behind Arthur is cold and he is glad for the heat from the fire washing over him. It’s been a long day, a long week, a long 6 months, and as he sits there in this obscure country pub he wants nothing more than to be back in his flat in London, curled up in his own bed. He gives his order to barman – steak and ale pie – and sits back to read the paper he found on the bar; it’s several days old, but it’ll do to occupy him until his food comes. After a couple of minutes he becomes aware that someone is watching him. Surreptitiously he raises his eyes from the paper, scanning slowly around the room. The Americans are still arguing with each other; the local couple with the two young children are trying to coax them into eating their vegetables; the table of what Arthur supposes to be farmers are debating whether it’s going to rain tomorrow; and the man on the other side of the fire is watching him.

He’s old, older than the bar man even, and Arthur hadn’t even noticed him when he’d walked; he almost seemed like part of the pub itself, as if he had been sitting there in the same seat for the last 50 years. There’s an old border collie asleep at his feet, and the two of them almost look like they could be some old portrait of country life. Apart from the firelight reflected in the old man’s eyes as he stares unwaveringly at Arthur.

Arthur tries to ignore him, not sure if the old man is merely curious or if a Straw Dogs type scenario is developing. Arthur continues to ignore the old man until his foods arrives and he forgets all about him as he tucks in; he’s starving. However, as soon as he’s finished, he feels the old man’s eyes on him again and Arthur decides he’s had enough and looks directly at him, challenging him. The old man seems to capitulate and he stands up and walks over to the bar. Arthur goes back to his paper, pretending to be engrossed in last week’s football results. In actuality, he’s still subtly watching the old man out of the corner of his eye. He supposes that any stranger would be interesting in a village this small, but after the week he’s had Arthur wants nothing more than to fade into the background, to go completely unnoticed, and this man and his unexplained interest has unsettled him more than he would like to admit.

Arthur tries to concentrate on the paper in front of him, rather than the movements of the old man at the bar, and how he converses in whispers with the barman. However he is interrupted moments later by a fresh pint being slid in front of him, and a body seating itself in the empty chair across from him. It’s the old man.

“Good evening there, lad.”

Arthur is nothing if not polite and he answers back without conscious thought.

“Good evening.”

“Read anything interesting?” He asks with a nod towards Arthur’s paper, and the glint in his eye tell Arthur that he knows the paper is old, that he hasn’t really been reading it.

Arthur decides honesty is probably the best policy, especially if he’s avoiding the Straw Dogs way.

“Not really, old paper - should be down the chip shop by now.”

The old man laughs, a deep crackling laugh like old paper in a fire.

“That it should, lad.”

They lapse into silence after that and Arthur has absolutely no idea why the man has come to join him. He remembers the pint.

“Thanks for the pint, by the way.”

“No trouble. You looked like you needed it.” And isn’t that right, Arthur thinks, swallowing gratefully.

“So what brings you to these parts?” Arthur doesn’t answer and the man carries on. “You don’t look like a tourist,” with a nod towards the Americans.

“I’m not.”

“We had a lad here just last week researching the area for a murder mystery novel. As if we get that sort of behaviour round here. You doing something like that?”

There’s steel in his expression as he says this and Arthur knows with sudden clarity that it is a warning; the men in this village, in this pub, pay no attention to the law when they need to protect their own. Arthur wonders briefly what has caused them to adopt this attitude, or whether is something that’s been in place since medieval times, passed through generations from father to son.

“No, nothing like that. I’m just driving back to London, and I needed a place to stay for the night.”

“Aye, this’ll do.” And he nods at Arthur, as if he’s imparted some great wisdom.

Arthur takes another sip of his pint in response, acutely aware of how awkward this conversation is, but no longer thinking that he’s in danger of getting murdered.

“You don’t look like a countryside lad.”

“Ah, I’m not.” Arthur has no idea how the man can tell this, considering he’s wearing old jeans and a t-shirt.

“It’s the hands, lad.” The old man seems to have read his mind. “You can tell when hands have never seen a hard day’s work in their life.”

Arthur looks at his hands and looks at the old man’s in comparison. His own are pale and smooth, whereas the old man’s are weathered and calloused. An image flashes through Arthur’s mind, a still from an old movie his must have watched; of old calloused hands clutching a great sword. He shakes his head to dispel the image, and when he looks up again the old man is watching him curiously, like he really can hear everything that’s going on in Arthur’s mind.

“We use our hands round here, that’s the way of life. It always has been.”

“Were you a farmer?”

“I still am. Farming’s not just a job—I’ll be a farmer ‘til the day I die. And so will Jess there,” he adds, gesturing to the sleeping collie. “The land is different now though, than it was in my youth.”

Despite his earlier wariness of the man, Arthur is beginning to enjoy himself; he’s never met a farmer before. He grew up in the city, and has only lived in cities since. It’s refreshing to meet someone whose whole outlook on life in completely different, someone who has never contemplated A Levels, university, or an office job. Or bloody suicide in a council estate bedroom.

“You mean because machines do everything now?”

“I’m not that old, lad! We had tractors when I was young, too.”

Arthur starts to bluster an apology, but the man just laughs.

“I mean, there’s something different about the land itself, the earth.”

Arthur isn’t sure whether he’s talking about the planet, or dirt. “The earth?”

“The soil, lad. Things just don’t grow like they used to.”

“Because of the pesticides?” Arthur had read something about this in the papers.

“No, lad. The world is...”

“Dying?” Arthur hazarded a guess. The old man is starting to sound like a bit of a hippy, after all.

“No, not dying,” the old man replied thoughtfully, “crying out for help”.

Arthur refrained from rolling his eyes, but really who spoke in clichés like that nowadays? He glanced around the room, trying to look for a distraction. But there wasn't one, of course. He was in a quiet country pub, all by himself. Being talked to by a crazy old man. Great.

“Help?”

“The magic is gone.”

“Magic?” Arthur really hopes the man means in a metaphorical sense, and doesn’t actually believe in magic.

“The magic of the land. Its life-blood.”

“Right, yeah.” Arthur glances over at the bar, wondering if he can use the excuse of needing another drink to get away from the man.

“Don’t doubt me, lad. You have a part to play in all this before it’s over.”

That got Arthur’s attention. “I’m sorry, what?!”

“I know who you are, young Pendragon. Your destiny is yet to come.”

“How do you know my name?”

The old man held his hands up, placating. “You told the Alex at the bar there, when you arrived.”

Of course he had, Arthur thought stupidly, heart rate returning to normal.

“Right, yeah. Sorry.”

“We used to know all the secrets of this land. No one seems to remember that anymore. We try round here, of course we do, to remember the old ways. But there’s only so much we can do.”

Arthur doesn’t reply, only downs the remaining dregs of his pint and looks hopefully towards the bar. The barman, Alex he supposes, is studiously ignoring him.

“The magic needs to be revived, the dragons woken.”

“Dragons?” Arthur asks sharply.

“Don’t you remember the dragons, Pendragon?”

Arthur snorts with laughter. This old man is clearly senile; he’s latched on to Arthur’s surname as some sort of sign.

“Sure, sure.” He humours him.

“It is your destiny, Pendragon.”

The old man is starting to sound like Obi Wan now, and Arthur’s had enough. He stands up. “Thanks for the pint, I appreciate it. I really should be getting some sleep now though. Early start.”

“No problem lad.” He stares right into Arthur’s eyes, like he’s trying to convey some sort of silent message. Arthur just turns away and collects his room key from the bar.

Once he’s alone he replays the evening’s conversation with the old man. Completely ridiculous, all of it, he thinks as he readies himself for bed. He’s asleep within five minutes, determined to think nothing more about it. However, at night when we sleep we exist in the endless possibility of our dreams, which stretch out across the landscape of eternity. In this land our loved ones are not dead and impossible battles are won. In our dreams we are all heroes. Arthur inhabits this land tonight. In the morning he remembers nothing, but like a tiny seed, the idea of destiny grows inside him, and like a light in the blackest darkness, soon it will be noticed.

In the morning Arthur wakes early, but for the first time since he can recall, he wakes feeling calm and well-rested. He pays his tab with the owner and sets off back to London, his heart light and free in his chest.

His feeling of peace lasts no longer than his journey though, and he feels restless when he returns to London. He spends the weekend restocking his flat with food, trying to make it feel lived in again, and spends Sunday in Regent’s Park, revelling in the late August sunshine. He feels like someone is watching him as he lies in the grass reading his book, the same feeling he had in Sainsbury’s yesterday as he was doing his shopping. However, when he takes the time to look around and study his surroundings, there is nobody he recognises. He tries to go back to reading his book, but a feeling of unease had settled over him and he leaves not long afterwards. He spends the evening in his flat (alone, always alone) and goes to bed early, a feeling akin to nervousness skittering along his spine and down to his fingertips.

Monday morning dawns far too early and Arthur drags himself out of bed. He misses the voices of the Fringe, the jugglers and the fire-breathers, the comics and the orators. His London flat seems much too quiet, even the birds seem muffled somehow, muted. The fresh sunlight that is streaming through his kitchen windows buoys him up though and, perhaps in a moment of madness, he decides to skip the tube and cycle to work instead. The tube is always oppressively hot in the summer and having spent the last 6 months walking to work down Johnston Terrace with Edinburgh castle looming overhead, Arthur can’t quite stomach the idea of being trapped in that small metal tube with hundreds of other early morning commuters. The nearest Boris Bike docking station is right outside the front door of his building, and although it takes him nearly ten minutes to figure out how to pay, Arthur is soon pedalling down Holborn with his suit trousers tucked into his socks, weaving in and out of the stationary rush hour traffic, laughing at their slowness while he speeds on past.

He’s constantly being overtaken by cyclists on sleek racing bikes, and he feels a pang of jealousy. Maybe he should get one of those too? He can’t quite imagine himself in lycra leggings though, and thinks that maybe he’ll stick to the Borises for the time being. He’s so wrapped up in his own musings, that he doesn’t realise the traffic lights in front of him have turned red. He also doesn’t notice the young man on a bike in front of him, now waiting for the lights to turn green again, and ploughs into the back of him before he can brake.

Arthur goes straight over his handlebars and the other man, knocking him off his bike in the process, sending him crashing into the pavement. Arthur lands on his outstretched hands and rolls immediately, aware that the traffic behind them could start moving at any moment. He hauls his bike up from the road and turns to face the other guy. The dark haired man has hit his head hard on the edge of the pavement, and he isn’t wearing a helmet. Why isn’t he wearing a helmet, Arthur thinks in panic. He drops his bike down next to him and crouches down at the other man’s side.

“Shit. Are you ok? Can you hear me? My name’s Arthur, are you ok? What’s your name?”

The other man, a trickle of blood winding its way down from his messy black hair, reaches a hand up towards Arthur’s face.

“Arthur.”

“No, that’s my name, mate. What’s yours?”

“Merlin, I’m Merlin.”

Oh Christ, thinks Arthur, this man is clearly hallucinating or something if he thinks that they’re Merlin the magician and King Arthur. He should probably call an ambulance.

“Yeah, ok Merlin. Let’s get you off the road.”

He half pulls, half drags the other man until he’s sitting on the pavement before retrieving both their bikes from the road. The lights have already turned green and the cars have been weaving around them – no one seems to care about the man lying on the ground. Although, Arthur supposes, if they didn’t cause the accident, why would they care? That seemed to be the way of the world nowadays.

Once they’re safely out of the way of the moving traffic, Arthur searches around in the depths of his bag and manages to drag out a crumpled tissue, which he uses to start mopping up the blood from Merlin’s brow. Once he clears the worst of it away, he can see that the wound is superficial and is already starting to clot.

“You ok there mate? How many fingers am I holding up?”

Merlin only looks at Arthur which something uncomfortably close to awe and it makes Arthur nervous. He doesn’t know what the other man is seeing, to make him look at him like that; maybe the head wound is much more severe than it looks.

“Do you need me to ring an ambulance?”

This seems to shake Merlin out of his stupor. “No, no. I’m fine. Just a scratch. I could do with a coffee, calm my nerves?”

Arthur looks at him suspiciously, arching an eyebrow in question. “Surely caffeine would do the complete opposite for your nerves?”

“Yes, I suppose, but I’ll still let you buy me one, Arthur.” He flashes Arthur a bright smile and the way he says his name sends shivers down his spine; it’s like Merlin has said his name a million times before – it sounds more familiar coming out of Merlin’s mouth than it has ever felt coming out of Arthur’s own.

He feels dazed and confused, like he is the one with the bleeding head wound, and he finds himself agreeing to buy Merlin a coffee. They pick up their bikes – Merlin’s front wheel is buckled, having been run over by a taxi as it lay discarded in the middle of the road. To Arthur’s untrained eye it looks fucked, but Merlin seems fairly confident that he can fix it, and happily wheels it along as it lists to one side. Arthur docks his thankfully unharmed Boris at the closest station as Merlin locks his bike up and they head inside the nearest Starbucks.

Arthur feels wrong-footed around Merlin; if he himself had been knocked off his bike with blood still staining his skin, he’d been slouched in a hard plastic chair at A&E, whilst thinking mutinous thoughts about the man who had done that to him. He would not, as Merlin currently is, be cheerfully ordering 4 extra shots of coffee in his drink, courtesy of an absolute stranger, complete mindless of the specks of blood splattered on his shirt.

Merlin, on the other hand, was, well, Merlin, so the head wound wasn’t his first priority at the moment. He was indeed the actual reincarnation of the mythical wizard. And he was well aware of that fact, had been for nearly 10 years now and he’d been looking for Arthur ever since.

He grew up in a village not far outside Cardiff. He had lived with his mother, a kind woman who however still had the cruelty to name her child Merlin. When he was younger he had always questioned his mother about her choice, but she had never been able to offer him a better explanation than “it suited you.” He had wondered what that meant for years, until the memory of his previous life was restored to him in his teens. He had struggled with it then, and in one infamous argument when he was 16, he had blamed his mother, telling her it was all her fault. Hunith had not understood what her son was railing against and had been frantic with worry when he had disappeared and not come back until a week later. The Merlin who returned at times felt like a completely different person and at times had felt just like her baby boy. Merlin had observed Hunith’s confusion occasionally, but had not had the words to explain. It was only last year, when Hunith had been dying of cancer that Merlin made some attempt.

“Mum, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be ridiculous dear, this is hardly your fault.”

“No, I mean I’m sorry mum. For everything. It was never your fault.”

Hunith had still not understood what her son had been blaming her for, but she understood his apology, and the sincerity of the regret in his eyes.

“That’s ok, my love. Everything’s ok.”

She had died a couple of days later, leaving Merlin alone in this world.

He has no recollection of his father, although he was assured by his mother that he did exist once; one virgin birth is enough for any planet (although Merlin has found references to his original namesake being "born of magic" over the years, and the thought does make him a little nervous). Either way, he owns exactly one photo of his father, which he keeps on a frame by his bed. Balinor died in a motorcycle accident before Merlin was even out of nappies, and Hunith had never remarried. A visit to a lonely graveside is the only father Merlin has ever known.

For as long as he can remember Merlin has had dreams of his former life. During childhood he had merely assumed it was a product of an overactive psyche responding to the name his mother had given him. He dreamt of battles and dragons, fire and swords. He dreamt of everyday stupid little things; carrying water up stone steps and using magic to warm it up, of starting fires and moving objects with nothing but his mind. Most prevalently, he dreamt of Arthur. Beautiful, blond, kingly Arthur, magical in his own right and the only man Merlin will ever love; past, present, or future.

It wasn't until he hit puberty that he realised he actually was magic, and subsequently, that they weren't just dreams, but remembrances. Most teenage boys have to suffer through the indignity of waking up with morning wood or come-splattered underpants after an uncontrollable wet dream. Merlin had those problems, yes, but they paled into insignificance by waking up with his whole room turned upside down, his bed suspended from the ceiling with Merlin still lying asleep it in; with fires starting when he stared at something a little bit too intensely; with objects flying into his hands before he’s even given them more than a moment’s thought.

It had been hard for Merlin to hide his newly-acquired talents at school, and as a result he had distanced himself from most of his peers. The only exception was Will, who had lived next door to Merlin for as long as he could remember. Merlin had tried to distance himself from Will as well, but the other boy was having none of it. He’d let Merlin have his secrets for a while, to cancel their plans repeatedly. Until one day, Will just hadn’t settled for Merlin’s excuses anymore. He’d banged on their cottage door until Hunith had taken pity on the boy and let him in. A few months later Merlin had trusted Will with his secret.

“You’re what?”

“I’m magic.”

“Two questions; what having you been taking, and can I have some?”

“Will! I’m not on drugs. I’m serious.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“So you can actually...?” He wiggled his fingers to articulate what he meant.

“Yeah.”

“Go on, then.”

“What?”

“Well show me!”

Merlin had opened his hand out flat, and moments later the apple that had been on his table rested in his upturned palm.

“Cool. What else?”

And that had been that. Will had not been freaked out, or disgusted, or any of the things that Merlin had feared. In fact, he took the revelation much better than Merlin himself had. The following summer Will had coerced Merlin into using his magic in the pursuit of mischief. That’s not what Will called it, of course; he called it “using his powers for the greater good”, which made Merlin laugh every time.

They’d mostly used Merlin’s magic to terrorise Old Man Simmons, who lived at the other end of the village. He was a crotchety old man, but the tree in his garden had the best apples for miles around, and the boys were always inventing new ways to steal them.

Will and Merlin had been involved in a bar fight the night they went out to celebrate Will’s 18th birthday. They’d gone into Cardiff, just the two of them, and bar-hopped their way to complete inebriation. It had been a great night, one of the best of Merlin’s whole life, until they had stumbled outside ready to go home. As they left the club, Will had stumbled into a group of men trying to get in.

“Oi, watch where you’re going faggot.”

Will, drunk as he was, had started mouthing off in return, rambling as only the drunk can that he wasn’t drunk, but even if he was he wouldn’t be trying it on with that guy. Merlin however, had gone quiet, trying to shrink into the background; this was his second big secret, the one not even Will knew. The group of men spotted his discomfort immediately, honing in on Merlin instead.

“Calm down, boyo, I get it. It’s your friend here who’s the shirt-lifter.”

The men had turned on Merlin as a group, trying to get their hands all over him, licking his neck and face with taunts of, “do you like that gay boy?”; “come on, kiss me.” Will had clawed at them from behind, desperate to get them off Merlin. Once they’d kicked Merlin to the ground they backed off.

“Learn your place, fag.”

But Merlin was never one to take things lying down, in this life or the past. “Fuck you.”

The group leader turned with a snarl of his face, a cracked bottle suddenly in his hand, and he lunged for Merlin. Will had instinctively jumped in front of his friend without a second thought. The jagged edge of the bottle cut straight through the flesh of Will’s neck, severing the artery underneath Merlin had learnt later. Blood started spurting from the wound immediately, and Merlin clamped his hands down over the wound, unable to staunch the flow despite his desperation. Merlin could feel the magic curling through his fingers, but it was ineffectual, useless, and it did nothing to stop the blood which stained Merlin’s hands and shirt.

Will’s fingers grabbed weakly at Merlin. “Merlin...”

“Will, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not...” his fault, Will was trying to say, but Merlin knew that it was. His fault for being gay, his fault for not being able to save Will. When the light faded from his best friend’s eyes, Merlin could hear the sirens of the ambulance in the distance, but it was too late, they were too late. Will was gone.

In the early hours of the morning when sleep finally claimed him, Merlin dreamt of the past. He dreamt of a time before when Will had died to save him, over a thousand years ago.

Since then Merlin had refused himself the luxury of allowing people to get close to him. He’d gone to university a couple of months after Will’s death and he’d kept to himself, focussing on his studies and dreams of Arthur. Always dreams of Arthur. He had hoped to meet him at university, had felt that going to London was the right choice – something was calling him there. But 5 years later and Merlin had pretty much given up hope. He’d spent a lot of time practicing his magic as well, practicing trying how to heal with his magic, so he never again had to feel the complete hopelessness and futility of that night.

Now, as they finally sit down opposite each other in Starbucks, Arthur stares at him. Merlin’s head wound seems to have stopped bleeding entirely, and now looks much less severe than Arthur had first assumed; it looks like it’s half-healed already. Merlin stares straight back at Arthur with unnerving calmness, as if he could stare at Arthur all day.

“So, what’s your name?”

Merlin looks at him like he’s mad, or like he’s the one with the suspected concussion. “It’s Merlin. Same as it was ten minutes ago.”

“Oh, right. I thought...”

Merlin raises an eyebrow at him.

“I thought, you know. Merlin. And Arthur. I thought you were making a joke. Or you hit your head a little too hard.” Arthur is deeply uncomfortable with having to explain his assumption to Merlin, he feels ashamed of himself. He clears his throat awkwardly. Merlin is the only one who appreciates the irony of Arthur’s assumption. They really are Merlin and Arthur in every sense, after all.

“So what do you do for a living Merlin?”

“I’m a PhD student actually, in my second year. I’m writing my thesis on the archaeological accuracies of Arthurian legend.”

He’d had many taunts about that, over the years, because of his name. And it’s true, he did become interested in the legend as a child because of his namesake, but it had taken on a whole new meaning when he’d remembered his actual identity during his teens. His life had, in a way, become about finding Arthur. And so he’d studied archaeology at university, and he’d gone on digs and visits to sites of importance in Arthurian legend, even if the connection had been mostly disproved since, or if he knew that Arthur had never even set foot there. He needed that link, needed something to ground himself to his former life, and that was how he’d ended up with his PhD topic. The desperate desire to find something concrete about a past that only he could remember; to prove that he wasn’t mad, that Arthur and Merlin really did exist.

He wasn’t sure how successful his endeavour was and, as the years went by with still no sign of Arthur, he had started to question how sane he really was. His obsession with Arthurian legend, and the pursuit of evidence, of fact, was in no way healthy and he’d questioned many times whether or not he was just imagining it all. The magic was real though, the magic was true, and that gave him strength during his darkest moments. It seemed to have all paid off now though; here was Arthur, his Arthur, sitting inches away from him. Merlin’s magic was singing.

“Arthurian legend?”

“Yes, you know King Arthur, the Once and Future King?”

“Yes, I’m familiar, we do share a name. But then so do you, I suppose.”

We both share more than that, thought Merlin, but he didn’t say anything. Not yet.

“What do you do, Arthur?”

“I work for a global accountancy firm. Not quite as interesting as legend, but it pays the bills.”

“And that’s what you want from life, is it Arthur, to pay the bills?”

Merlin’s staring at him again with that unwaveringly stare, it’s like he’s expecting something from Arthur, but he has no idea what.

“I... It’s not so bad.”

Merlin hummed in response.

“Don’t you ever think you should be doing something more?”

Merlin wanted to draw Arthur out, the Arthur he was familiar with from his dreams and from legend.

Arthur just shrugged in response. “What am I going to do? Everyone has to work.”

That hadn’t been the answer Merlin had been expecting at all. Surely Arthur would crave adventure, crave responsibility, or harbour some deep longing for the feel of Excalibur in his hands? Wouldn’t he? Merlin tried to imagine not having the feel of magic tingling at his fingertips, tried to imagine working in an office, content with “paying the bills”, and he just couldn’t do it.

He pushed again. “Haven’t you dreamt of something more?”

“Dreams are for children, Merlin.”

“You really think so? You’ve never dreamt of...”

“Of what?” Arthur is meeting Merlin’s eye now, like he’s egging him on almost.

“Of ...” Oh hell, he may as well just say it. “Of being King Arthur?”

Arthur snorted with laughter in response. “Guess you really did hit your head a bit too hard there. You should wear a helmet, Merlin.”

“You never had any dreams? Not even as a child?” He sounded horrified now.

“I’ve had plenty of dreams, Merlin.”

“No, but about me? About history? About being King Arthur?”

“No...” This line of questioning was making Arthur’s skin crawl; who the hell was this crazy guy, insisting he should have had dreams about him, about being a mythical King that he just happened to share a name with?

“You never had a single dream about King Arthur, abut medieval times, anything?” And when Merlin looked at him with those wide blue eyes, he knew. This might be the strangest conversation Arthur has ever had, but he can’t bring himself to lie under the scrutiny of Merlin’s keen gaze.

“Not recently.” Arthur admitted grudgingly. Merlin breathed a heavy sigh of relief, brief panic over.

“But you have?”

“When I was young, a tiny child really, I used to have the same dream every night.” He’d almost forgotten, pushed it to the back of his mind for so many years, pretending it had never happened.

“And...?”

Arthur hesitated at first, his reluctance clear in his face, but then he started talking. He kept his voice low so they wouldn’t be overheard. “In the dream I’m alone. I’m a man not a child, as tall as I am today, and I’m holding a sword. I’m surrounded by mist, and I can’t see anything else. Then I’m aware of a sound that’s coming closer. I’m thinking of whether I need to run and hide, or not. It sounds like giant, leathery wings, like that biggest bird you could ever possibly imagine. The noise is almost deafening when a long dark shadow passes over my head. Suddenly the mist is lit up by a great stream of fire bursting into life, scouring across the landscape. Once the flames are gone, I hear a voice, a man, calling out in a strange language, and the shape turns towards the voice. It lands on the ground in front of the man, but there is still too much mist for me to see either of them clearly.

“I thought that maybe it was a dragon, and I asked my father where they lived. He told me that dragons didn’t exist.” He looked away from Merlin, uncomfortable with his unwavering attention. “I never had that dream again.”

Merlin is stunned into silence by Arthur’s admission. He remembers that scene. He’s the man standing in the mist, calling the dragon to him. Arthur doesn’t know what to make of Merlin’s silence, and shifts around awkwardly in his chair, wondering if he’s about to get laughed at.

“Arthur...” Merlin is awed by Arthur; it really is his King sitting before him.

“It’s not a dream.”

“What? Of course it is. I remember having it.”

“No, I mean. It really happened. The other man, it’s me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Ok. I’m not crazy, I promise. But, you and me, we’re Arthur and Merlin.”

“Yes, we’ve already established that.” Arthur is nonplussed, Merlin is wondering if he’s being deliberately dense.

“No, I mean. We’re Arthur and Merlin. The physical reincarnations of King Arthur, and Merlin. That dream really happened.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Arthur voice is quiet, he’s not laughing now; Merlin can tell a part of him is starting to believe, wants to believe.

“Arthur. Look at me. Do I look like I’m joking?”

Arthur looks straight into Merlin’s eyes, blood still staining his brow, and centuries pass between them.

Arthur breaks away first. “I have to go to work.”

“Ok, but running away won’t make it any less true. I’ve been waiting for you for years.”

Arthur shoots him an indecipherable look at that, and Merlin isn’t sure whether that was an admission too far; it makes him sound a little bit like a creepy stalker.

“It was interesting meeting you, Merlin.”

Arthur’s about to leave and Merlin knows if he walks out now he’ll never see him again. He grabs his wrist.

“Look, just meet me tomorrow ok? So you’ll know I’m not just concussed and spouting nonsense.”

“No, then you’ll just be spouting nonsense.”

Merlin gives him a hard look; the kind of look Arthur thinks a mother would give when you’ve done something wrong. Arthur capitulates, he doesn’t know why, he should just leave Merlin far behind and forget all about this madness.

“Ok, I’ll meet you. In the evening, after work.”

“Great.” He beams at Arthur, as though this is the best news he’s heard all year. It’s not far from the truth.

“Great,” Arthur mutters blithely in reply.

“Here’s my number, text me and I’ll text you my address. We can order takeout.”

“Right, thanks. Yeah. See you tomorrow, Merlin.”

“See you tomorrow, Arthur.” And he smiles again.

Arthur leaves Merlin in Starbucks, still feeling stunned by the whole encounter. He’s two hours late for work when he finally arrives, but no one mentions it at all. That night he dreams of hands: three fingers on a palm; index fingers touching; a curled index finger on the opposing palm; then straight; index finger to middle finger; two fingers on a palm. The pattern repeats over and over, like someone is trying to send him a message that he doesn’t understand. It makes him think of Merlin.

Arthur leaves work early the next day. He’s barely done any work in the past two days, but no one’s said anything – they probably haven’t even noticed. He heads to the address that Merlin has texted him, not far from his own flat, picking up a Chinese takeaway for dinner along the way.

“Arthur.” Merlin seems surprised to find him at his door, and Arthur feels somewhat offended. Had Merlin really not expected him to show up? He had given his word.

“Hi.” He stands there awkwardly on the door step for a couple of seconds, before Merlin seems to realise and ushers him inside.

“I bought food. You’re not vegetarian or anything are you?”

“Dear god, no. That smells delicious.”

They sit down on Merlin’s battered old green sofa to eat, and watch a couple of reruns of the Big Bang Theory on E4. Now Arthur is here he’s not sure why he came. The world feels very normal as he sits on Merlin’s sofa; talk of dragons and living legends seems too far-fetched. He doesn’t know what to say. Merlin picks up on his unease, and waits for over an hour before he turns to Arthur.

“So...”

“So?”

“Do you believe me today?”

“I don’t know, Merlin. I just don’t know.”

Merlin decides to stop beating around the bush, and just dive straight in. “There's a dragon sleeping under a hill.”

“What?”

“There's a dragon. Under a hill.”

 

“I thought it was giants that slept under hills?” Arthur said, a mischievous glint in his eye.

“What?” Merlin stared at him, expression flat.

“You know, Gog Magog. You should know that, Merlin.”

“I do know that!” Replied Merlin, indignant, “I just can’t believe you do.”

“I’m perfectly well versed in British folklore, thank you very much.”

Merlin cleared his throat. “Right, yes. Well, that’s a different hill. That’s in Cambridge.”

Arthur goggled at him for a second; Merlin seemed to be talking like all this was actually true. He cleared his throat.

“So where’s the dragon then?” Arthur's voice was serious now, no longer joking around.

“Under Arthur’s Seat, in Edinburgh.”

“There's a dragon under my hill?”

“Fitting you should call it that really. What’s more appropriate than a dragon under Arthur Pendragon’s hill?” Merlin smiled at Arthur brightly. 

“What’s it doing there?” Arthur was struggling to fit this conversation into the bounds of reality.

“Sleeping. Obviously.”

“So it just fell asleep one day and thought it would stay there?”

“Well, no. Of course not. It was trapped there, imprisoned.”

“By an evil sorcerer?” Arthur’s tone was mocking.

“Yes.” Merlin replied.

“Really?” Arthur's eyebrows shot up.  _Seriously?_

“Yes.” Merlin replied again, with an exasperated sigh.

“No, but really? There’s a dragon sleeping under Arthur’s Seat after it was trapped there by an evil sorcerer? Like actually, not metaphorically?”

“Like actually, yeah.”

“Oh, wow. I think I need a drink.” He thinks of lying on that hill in the heat of summer, the slow steady sound like a drum beating from within the hill itself, which he’d attributed to a dream. The sound of a heartbeat.

Merlin headed into the kitchen and poured him a whiskey. He let Arthur savour the drink for a moment, before he dropped the next bomb.

“So, er, the reason why I’m mentioning it.”

“Mentioning what?”

“The dragon, Arthur.”

“Right, right yes. The dragon.”

“We have to rescue it. You have to rescue it.”

“Rescue it? From under the hill?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” Arthur seemed to be accepting all this rather calmly, Merlin finds himself thinking. He doesn’t know whether that’s a good sign or not.

“So how do we do that then?” Arthur asks, and Merlin wonders how on earth he’s meant to answer that.

“It’s pretty simple. All we need is Excalibur.”

“Excalibur?”

“Yeah. It’s the key.”

“Excalibur, the mythical sword of Arthurian legends, is the key to releasing a dragon from underneath Edinburgh?”

“That’s right.”

“Of course.” Arthur is full of disbelief and sarcasm. Merlin eyes him worriedly. “And this is my problem, why?”

“Because you’re Arthur Pendragon. The once and future king.”

Arthur groans, burying his face in his hands. “Why couldn’t my father just have named me Ben or something?”

“I don’t really think it’s as simple as that.”

“No, of course not. Silly me. So, when do you want us to go?”

“Go?”

“To Edinburgh, Merlin. Come on, keep up.”

“Oh well, we sort of need to pick up Excalibur first.”

“Pick up? What, from Argos?”

“The British Museum.”

“Excalibur is in the British Museum? I thought it wasn’t real?”

“Well no one knows it’s Excalibur. But it is. It’s there; I checked.”

“You checked?”

“I go to the museum every week just to make sure it’s still there. But I knew what it was the first time I ever saw it; you don’t forget a sword like that. Especially not if you’re the one who made it.”

“You made Excalibur?”

“Err yeah, sort of.”

“And the little label in the museum just says that it’s Excalibur, does it?”

“Obviously not. I’ve just told you, I recognised it. But there are signs, if you know what to look for even if you’ve never seen it before.”

Arthur sighed heavily.

“So you’re telling me we need to go to the British Museum, steal one of their artefacts, a sword no less—which we could probably get arrested for just carrying around the streets of London. After we’ve done that, without getting caught, we just casually road-trip it up to Edinburgh, and free a dragon.”

“Not quite.”

“And what does ‘not quite’ mean, Merlin?”

“We need the keys.”

“You just said Excalibur was the key!”

“It is! One of them.”

“One of how many?”

“Three. One of three.”

“OK, three’s not so bad. Are the others in London as well?”

“No...” He looks shifty when he says it.

“No, I know where they are; or no, we’re looking for a needle in a haystack?”

“I’m pretty sure I know where they are.”

“Pretty sure?”

“Like 80%. There’s a couple of options, but I’ve spent years researching this. Trust me, Arthur.”

Arthur looks like he’s about to refuse Merlin his trust. But surely, they wouldn’t be here having a conversation about dragons and keys and possibly locations if Arthur didn’t already believe him, would they?

“I—“

“Arthur.”

“I can’t. I’m sorry.” This couldn’t be true. It was sheer madness to be listening to a man he only met yesterday talk about dragons and destiny. He was an accountant, for Christ sake.

“I have to go.” He gets up, and opens the front door before Merlin reacts.

“Wait! Please, Arthur, you have to. I’m begging you. Please believe me. Please.” He sounds completely desperate, and it hurts Arthur to listen to him.

Arthur doesn’t reply, and he walks out of Merlin’s flat without looking back.

That night he dreams of burning cities, whole landscapes reduced to nothing more than rubble and dust, a whole host of dragons circling overhead. It’s simultaneously the most terrifying and most magnificent dream he’s ever had, and he isn’t sure it’s just a dream; it feels more like premonition. He has another dream afterwards, one that leaves him shaking and gasping for air. One that he tries to forget, writing it off as an over-active imagination, but deep-down he knows better; he knows that he’s dreamt the past. In the morning he calls in sick to work, and then he rings Merlin.

“I believe you. I’m in.”  
  
They meet in Merlin’s cramped flat again. Worryingly, it already feels a bit like home even though he’s only spent one evening there. Arthur brings coffee with him – something ridiculously strong for Merlin, and a heavily sugared tea for himself. He’s glad he did because Merlin is still half asleep when he arrives, and still wearing his pyjamas. He lets Arthur in with a bleary-eyed nod of thanks for the caffeine, before sinking down onto the sofa, wrapping himself in an old worn blanket as he does so. Arthur joins him a moment later.

“I need to know two things first. Why are we doing this, and why are you doing this?”

Merlin sighed heavily, they shouldn’t still be having this question.

“I’m Merlin, Arthur.”

“Yes, I know your name.”

“No, you really don’t seem to be grasping it. My name is Merlin, yes. But it’s always been Merlin. It was Merlin a thousand years ago, and it will be Merlin a thousand years into the future.”

“But you weren’t born a thousand years ago.”

“Come on Arthur! Haven’t you been listening to a thing I’ve said?”

“Of course I’ve been listening. I’ve been listening to you talk about dragons, and keys, and mythical swords.”

“It’s not mythical, that’s my point! You may have been listening, but you haven’t really heard a word I’ve said. I am Merlin. I am Merlin now, and I was Merlin in the 6th century in the court of Camelot. Every myth and legend you’ve ever heard about King Arthur is true, was true, still is true now. You are King Arthur, and I am the sorcerer Merlin. We’ve done this before, and let me tell you I’m quite anxious for it to end differently.”

“Merlin.” The name is a plea, although for what Arthur doesn’t know.

“Think, Arthur, really think. The dreams, didn’t they feel real?”

Arthur’s voice is quiet, when he finally replies. “More real than anything.”

“So why don’t you believe me?”

Merlin is looking at him earnestly, but there’s something else lying behind his expression; it looks like his heart is breaking every time Arthur denies him.

“I do believe you. It scares me.”

“Why Arthur?”

“I had another dream, a different one last night.”

Merlin waits for Arthur to expand on this, but he seems reluctant, and Merlin tries to imagine what he could have dreamed of that has him so spooked.

“Tell me about it?”

Arthur takes a deep breath, and his spine noticeably straightens before he begins speaking. “There’s grey in your hair, and you’re smiling at me even though we’re on a battlefield. You turn away, shouting something over your shoulder and I can’t hear you. When I go to take a step towards you, I’m blown off my feet by some sort of explosion. I lie there, dazed and disoriented for a moment, before a figure appears above me. For a moment I think it’s you. Merlin, I say, and the figure laughs. It’s a man, with dark hair and blue eyes much like yours, but he’s looking at me with such rage, such hatred. And then he stabs me straight through the heart with a long silver dagger. The next thing I know he’s gone, and you’re by my side. You’re spouting nonsense words, in Latin or something that I can’t understand. You think you can help, but there’s blood bubbling out of my mouth, my chest. I’m going to die, and you look me in the eye and say ‘I’m sorry, Arthur. I will fix this.’ The last thing I can remember is wishing I were more comfortable, I think I’m lying on a rock, or something and it’s such a stupid thought to have, and I look at you and I want to say something but I _can’t._

“And that’s it. I woke up struggling to breathe, clutching at my chest, like I could still feel the knife inside of me.”

Arthur has been looking at his hands the whole time he’s been talking, but he looks up at a small, choked sound from Merlin. Merlin is visibly shaking, eyes red as tears stream down his face; he looks utterly wrecked.

“Wha--?”

“Arthur.” Merlin’s voice breaks on his name, and he can’t get any other words out.

Arthur moves on instinct, wrapping an arm around Merlin’s trembling shoulders drawing him into the warmth of his chest. After a moment one of Merlin’s hands reaches up to rest over Arthur’s heart, right where the dagger had gone through. They sit that way for a long time as the sun tracks its way across the sky, shifting the shadows in the room, before Arthur speaks.

“That’s real, isn’t it?”

Merlin is silent, and Arthur thinks that he’s not going to reply but eventually he does, his voice small, lost.

“Yes. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”

Merlin’s apology is so heartbroken, that Arthur suddenly feels tears in his eyes. He hugs Merlin closer to himself, wishing he could protect Merlin from this pain.

“I’m sorry, Merlin, I’m sorry.” He whispers into his hair, and he lets Merlin fall asleep in his arms.

By the time Merlin awakes it’s mid-afternoon. Arthur had covered him up with a blanket and left the flat in search of food after discovering that the cupboards were completely bare. He’s cooking some scrambled eggs when Merlin appears behind him in the kitchen.

“Arthur.”

“Morning sunshine.”

“You’re still here?” The question is innocent enough, but Arthur can see the fear lying underneath; the fear that Arthur still doesn’t believe, will still walk away and out of Merlin’s life forever.

“Food’s ready.” He ignores Merlin’s quasi-question, unwilling to face the jumble of thoughts and emotions that are now associated with Merlin. The sit down and eat in silence for long enough for Merlin to inhale everything on his plate and sit back beaming at Arthur. Arthur is barely even half way through his food, but starts talking anyway.

“So, these keys, where are they?”

Merlin switches suddenly from laid back student still in his pyjamas to full-on professor mode. “Ok, so the sword, we know, is in the British Museum. There’s some problems with logistics and you know, security, involved with that but at least we have a definite location for it.”

“Yes, no problem at all concerning how we’re going to steal it. I’ve always wanted a life of crime.”

Merlin ignores Arthur’s sarcasm and takes the comment at face value.

“Well great, I’m sure you’ll take to it like a duck to water.” And his smile is so ridiculous that Arthur can’t help smiling in return, relieving some of the uncertainty and distrust still floating around. Arthur is somewhat hurt that Merlin had still been expecting him to leave while he slept, even after the dream he had shared. It had felt like baring his soul, couldn’t Merlin see that? He wasn’t leaving again, no matter what.

“So the other two; we have the cup and the stone.” Merlin is talking again, and Arthur forces his mind back into the present, firmly suppressing all the lingering thoughts of his own death, past or future.

“A stone?” Arthur looked decidedly unimpressed.

“Yes.”

“What good is a stone? A sword, I can understand; a cup, I’m a little dubious about but maybe it has its uses, everyone loves a good grail quest after all; but a rock? How is that going to help us?”

Merlin seems reluctant to explain, but once he does Arthur immediately understands his hesitance considering the events of earlier today.

“It’s... When you said you felt uncomfortable, because you thought you were lying on a rock...?”

“When I died?”

“Yes, when you died.” Merlin swallows heavily before continuing, “There was a stone. It was covered in your blood afterwards, and all the magic in the area affected it somehow. Even I don’t understand how, but it’s imbued with blood magic, your blood magic. It’s meant to recognise the true King of the land. It’s meant to recognise you.”

Arthur is silent for a moment as he collects himself. “Right, so a stone then. And a cup you say?”

“Yes, you’re thinking along the right lines with the Holy Grail, in fact. The Holy Chalice and the Grail are often closely associated in mythology, or even thought to be the same artefact, although that’s a fallacy of course. I can’t vouch for the existence of the grail in terms of Jesus, but I can for the cup. It’s blood magic again there, as well. It was the cup that housed your ‘life-blood’.”

“My what?”

“The blood of your birth.”

Arthur is immediately assaulted by images of a bloody and violent birth. He sees walls of stone and bright hospital lights. He sees a small bloodied child, crying in the arms of a pale blonde woman. He sees a stern faced Uther, one moment in a button down shirt, the next in a red cloak. He shakes his head to dispel the images, and finds that his hands are shaking slightly. He tucks his hands beneath his legs and squashes them against the chair. He wonders if both Arthurs grew up without a mother.

“What’s with all the blood? It’s a bit creepy.”

“These objects are tied to you and your essence Arthur, that’s why we need them.”

“But, I’ve never heard of these objects before in my life.”

“You’re one and the same, once and future, past and present.”

“Like, genetically?”

“Like everything.”

“And you, as well?”

“Yeah.”

“But, I don’t understand. Why? Why are we here?”

“Arthur, people have been asking that question for generations. I don’t think I’m equipped to answer that.”

“Don’t be a smart-arse Merlin, I’m not asking for philosophy, I’m asking about us.”

“From what I can remember and from what I’ve researched, 1500 years ago when we were alive, something big went down.”

“Something big went down?” Arthur raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t mock me Arthur, I’m trying my best. There was a war; you’ve seen the battlefields in your dreams. We had a dragon on our side, but so did they. And, we lost. You died, and we lost. The land lost something special that day, and I’m not talking just about you.

“You were the symbol of a new age, an age where magic was embraced, where king and sorcerer lived side by side, and neither tried to persecute the other. It was a time of magic and a time of dragons, a time of possibility. I...I didn’t cope well after your death. I failed to kill Mordred on the battlefield that day and he made me regret it.”

“Mordred?”

“The man who killed you. He was a sorcerer. You saved his life once, but it wasn’t enough. He was the one who imprisoned the dragon; he’s the one who imprisoned the magic of the land.”

“He’s back?” Arthur’s tone is sharp, bringing Merlin back into the focus of the present. “It’s happening all over again?”

“Yes and no. It’s different this time. Mordred is trying to maintain the status quo, while we’re the ones fighting to change it. He...”

Whatever he was though, Merlin wouldn’t elaborate.

“We have to do this Arthur. We have to make things right.”

“Or die trying?”

Merlin doesn’t answer him, but the grim line of his mouth is answer enough for Arthur.

Arthur reaches across the table, empty plates abandoned between them, and covers Merlin’s cold hand with his own.

“We can do it, Merlin.”

Merlin shakes his head, as if dispelling the fog of memories he seems to be swimming in, drowning in the lost centuries between them. He offers Arthur a soft smile in return.

“Yeah, we can.”

“So,” Arthur’s tone is all business as he stands up and starts to clear the plates away. “When are we going to the BM?”

“Thursday.”

“This Thursday?!”

“Yeah, no time like the present, after all.” There is a slightly sardonic smile on Merlin’s lips at this remark. “There’s a late night event on, only some of the galleries will be open; it’s our opportunity to get the sword without thousands of tourists milling around.”

“Alright, Thursday it is then. And the rest?”

“Well, it’s probably best if we don’t hang around in London afterwards. You know, just in case. So, straight away. We’re headed to Caerleon first.”

“Caerleon?”

“Near Cardiff. It’s a Roman town, and you only went there once to sign a peace treaty, but for some reason it’s become a staple in Arthurian literature. At one time it was assumed to be the site of Camelot, and the amphitheatre was your round table. Most scholars agree that isn’t the case nowadays, but my research seems to suggest the stone has ended up there.”

“Alright, Caerleon it is.”

“We’re going to need a car.”

“Don’t worry Merlin, I can sort that out.” Arthur smiles like the Cheshire Cat and Merlin wondered what he’d let himself in for this time around.

* * *

“Can we please go through the plan one more time?”

“Arthur.”

“Just humour me, Merlin, please? I don’t fancy spending the next few years in prison.”

They were sitting next to each other on Merlin’s worn sofa, close enough for their knees to bump together whenever they shifted. Empty cartons of Chinese takeaway lay littered around them, and a muted episode of Miranda was playing on the television.

“Ok, fine. So the event starts at 7pm. We’re going to arrive around eight, when it’s busy enough that we should be able to blend in easily. Then we circulate, scope the place out, see if we can discern how many security guards there are on duty.”

“Why do we have to wait, can’t we just take the sword and run?”

“It’s too risky. We have to get out of there with the sword. If we try to run while the place is full it’s much more likely that we’ll get caught. If we wait until the museum is deserted, it’s much easier for two people to sneak out unnoticed then.”

“But surely the alarms will be on? They must have alarms. If we steal the sword while the museum is still open, at least we’ll be able to get out.”

“There’s going to be security whenever we steal it, and I just think that we’ll have the best chance at stealth if there’s no one else around.”

“No one else except the security guards. Who’ll probably be armed.”

“They don’t let people carry guns in this country, Arthur, it’ll be fine. They’ll have truncheons at worst.”

“Oh great, truncheons.” Arthur shifted away from Merlin, towards the other end of the sofa, crossing his arms over his chest like a petulant child. Merlin ignored him.

“So anyway, we wait until the event is starting to wind down, and then we peel off into the gallery at the back.”

“The one with the big head from Easter Island, the moai they call it, right?”

“Yes. How do you know that?”

“I’ve been to the museum, Merlin. I thought it was pretty cool.”

“Well yes, whilst most people would agree with you, the Rapa Nui want it back. How would you feel if your heritage was trapped in the museum of a people who had no claim over it?”

“Well, it is. Excalibur’s there, that’s the whole point of this excursion.”

“Yeah alright, smart arse.”

Arthur shot him a smug grin in return. He loved being right. “You’re an archaeologist anyway. I thought that meant you loved hoarding other people’s shit.”

“Well yes, not quite so literally I hope. I didn’t say I agreed with it, just that it’s a matter of contention, along with a host of other artefacts.”

“Alright, alright. This is not the time for you to elaborate on the morality of museums and the misappropriation of cultural heritage. What happens once we leave the event?”

“We may possibly need to create a diversion at that point, but we can play that part by ear. But then we wait. So for the love of god make sure you’ve been for a piss beforehand.”

“Yes mother.”

Merlin gave Arthur a stern look and a roll of his eyes before continuing.

“We wait until the event has cleared out, and normal night time peace has been restored. And then we head upstairs to the Prehistory and Europe gallery. Living and Dying is connected to the Mexico gallery, where we can access the east stairs. These bring us out at the start of the Europe corridor.”

Arthur grabbed Merlin’s arm, startling him out of his diatribe. “We have to go upstairs? We’re not going to be hiding in the right gallery?”

“Well, I thought we’d probably stay as close as possible to the event, so we know when it’s properly finished. Then we should still leave it an hour or so to make sure all the staff have definitely gone home.”

“But, what if they find us? What if the gallery we need is locked?”

Merlin can’t really deal with any more of Arthur’s questions, and gets up off the sofa, heading towards the kitchen to put the kettle on. Arthur didn’t get the hint, and followed him in.

“Merlin—“

“Arthur, just trust me ok. I’ve been in the museum a hundred times before. I’ve spent hours working this plan out. It is going to work, but you have to trust me.”

“It seems like I’m doing that a lot recently.” He tone came out more petulant child than grown adult.

“Arthur.”

“Sorry. I’m sorry. I’ve just never stolen something from a museum before.”

“Neither have I!” Merlin paused for a moment, chewing his bottom lip and then turned away to fetch some mugs. “Well, I might have done. Once. But it’s not like it’s a hobby or anything.”

“What was that, Merlin?” Arthur’s question was too polite and Merlin didn’t want to answer.

“Sugar in your tea?”

“Merlin.”

“Milk?”

“Merlin! What have you stolen from the museum before?”

Merlin’s face was screwed up as if in pain when he turned back round to face Arthur. “Not the same museum. Just this tiny little museum, in Caerleon. It was years ago, when I was an undergrad, and I went there to do some research for an essay, about Romans. I wasn’t even looking for anything to do with you. But then I saw it tucked away in a corner, one of your rings. It was rusted, and barely recognisable, but I felt—I recognised it. And I missed you so badly, I couldn’t help myself.”

Merlin turned away again, busying himself with pouring out the tea. Arthur had a feeling that Merlin wasn’t telling him something; what had he felt? However, he didn’t push it. Merlin had sounded so small and vulnerable as he spoke, as if he had lived for over a thousand years and yearned for Arthur for every single day, and Arthur couldn’t quite begrudge him his actions.

“Do you still have it?”

“What?”

“The ring—my ring—have you got it?”

Merlin couldn’t meet Arthur’s eyes. “Yeah, yeah I do.” He turned away from Arthur and headed into his bedroom, Arthur trailing behind. Merlin kneeled down next to his bed, and drew out a small wooden chest from underneath it. It was plain enough until you looked closely, and then you realised the lid was inlaid with the finest gold thread, weaving in and out of itself in a intricate pattern of tiny, delicate Celtic knots.

Merlin shielded the box against himself as he opened it and Arthur wasn’t able to get a good look at the contents; it seemed to be full of random items of bric-a-brac, but apart from the ring, Arthur couldn’t imagine what Merlin would be hiding with such reverence. Merlin drew out Arthur’s ring and held it up to him. The image of Merlin on his knees proffering a ring to Arthur in different circumstances was hard to shake.

He took the ring from Merlin’s outstretched hand, feeling the soft weight of it in his palm before looking at it. He recognised it, even though it was rusty as hell, and he knew it was the one he used to wear on his index finger. Any lingering doubt that Arthur had been holding on to came crashing down around him; he recognised the ring. Not from seeing it before, or seeing it in a book or a film. No, he recognised the weight of it, he remembered the feel of it on his finger, the way it would catch in the candlelight whenever he stayed up too late reading reports. It was his ring. After a minute or two of silence he made to give it back to Merlin.

“No.” Merlin said softly, closing Arthur’s hand around the ring. “You keep it, it’s yours.”

“It’s rusted to pieces Merlin, I can’t exactly wear it.”

Merlin rummaged around in his bed side table, before handing over a length of fine black rope.

“Merlin,” Arthur started as he looped the rope through the old ring, “I’m not even going to ask why you have silk rope in your bedroom.”

“If you play your cards right, you might just find out.” And with a comically lascivious wink, he left Arthur alone in the bedroom.

They spent the rest of the afternoon sorting out all the things they would need for the ensuing road trip, including a stressed Merlin sending Arthur out to buy himself a sleeping bag, despite the latter’s protestations that there was no way he’d be camping. Arthur returned with a sleeping bag the size of a small pony, when compressed, and Merlin is fairly certain he did it completely out of petty spite.

After a couple of deep calming breaths Merlin was able to speak without wanting to strangle Arthur. “Right, we should pack all of this into the car before we head to the museum.”

“In case we need to make a quick getaway?” Arthur’s tone was lightly mocking, but Merlin could sense the underlying nerves.

“Yeah pretty much.”

Arthur shrugged and then replied, “Alright, car’s outside.”

Merlin followed Arthur out the flat and down to stairs out into the street below, before the sleek black M3 in front of them beeped open. Merlin’s jaw dropped.

“Arthur... What is this?”

“It’s a car, Merlin.” Smug grin firmly in place.

“I thought you drove a golf!”

Arthur at least had the brains to look sheepish then.

“Yeah, well I do. Normally. I thought we could have some fun?”

“0-60?”

“3.6 seconds.”

Merlin whistled low, and Arthur could tell he was winning him over.

“And hey, look at it this way. If the world ends, I won’t even have to finish paying for it.”

* * * * *

Hours later, Arthur really wished he’d paid attention to Merlin’s advice and gone for a slash before they started playing hide and seek. He’d sworn he hadn’t needed it ten minutes ago, but there was just something about hiding that made him desperately need to pee.

“For god’s sake Arthur, would you stop fidgeting? Please?”

They were currently situated in the Mexico exhibit, the muted lighting and black carpet adding to the the feel that they were doing something illicit. They’d worn dark jeans and shirts to blend in at the event, and were now both wearing dark jumpers as well, in a somewhat ridiculous attempt to blend in to the darkness. Arthur had so far refrained from making a quip about balaclavas.

“Seriously, just keep still before I strangle you.”

“I can’t, I need a piss.”

“Arthur, you are such a child!” Merlin replied in an exasperated whisper. “What did I tell you, huh? What did I say?!”

“Alright, calm down. Yes, you were right.”

“Yes, I was right! That doesn’t exactly help us now though.”

Both Merlin and Arthur looked around the room, looking for something to piss into. All the artefacts were behind glass cases. Arthur forgot about his need to pee as another thought occurred to him.

“Merlin?” He whispered.

“Yes, Arthur?”

“The artefacts, they’re all locked in glass cases.”

“Yes, Arthur, that’s sort of the point of a museum.”

Arthur shot him a withering look.

“I realised that, thank you. What you failed to mention was that Excalibur is going to be in a locked glass case as well. How are we supposed to get it out? We can’t just break the glass, that’ll have security on us within seconds.”

“I know.” He gave Arthur that look again when he replied, the one where Arthur could tell that he was keeping something from him. “I can pick locks.”

“You can pick locks? Just something you acquired during your prolific life of crime, is it?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

Merlin seemed distracted as he replied, teeth worrying at his lower lip, and Arthur decided to just let it drop. If it came to it, he could probably outrun a fat old security guard, even with a sword to slow him down.

Finally, and before Arthur actually wet himself, Merlin deemed they had waited long enough and they made their way upstairs. Once they reached the first floor it took Merlin a few seconds to orientate himself: there was something eerily unsettling about the muted lights, such a stark contrast to the normally well lit museum.

“It’s this way,” he whispered, gesturing down the long hall.

They headed through one room, and at the entrance to the next Merlin motioned for Arthur to get down. Arthur dropped to the floor immediately, thinking they’d been spotted. When nothing else happened for a few moments, he looked up only to find Merlin sniggering at him lightly. He scowled at him.

“Just stay here. It’s just over there.”

Arthur kept watch at the end of the room whilst Merlin crept over to where Excalibur was. Merlin was moving far too slowly in Arthur’s opinion. Was it his imagination or could he hear footsteps? Arthur took his eyes off Merlin for half a second to glance behind himself, sure he’d see the security guard bearing down on him, and when he looked back Merlin was no longer crouched in front of the glass case, but standing facing Arthur, holding Excalibur reverently before him. That was quick.

Merlin hurried back to where Arthur was waiting, being nowhere near as stealthy as on the way over and handed him the sword. It felt burning hot it his hands, but left no mark on his skin. The hardest part was done, if worse came to worst, they could just run now. However, as they turned back to head towards the stairs, Arthur really did hear footsteps this time. And the flash of a torch beam sweeping across the next room.

“Shit!” Merlin’s fingers dug into Arthur’s arm.

“Quick, get back here.”

Merlin dragged him to the corner of the room, behind a freestanding case. It offered a pitiful amount of cover, there was no way the security guard would fail to spot them now. Was there any way they could conceal Excalibur and just pretend they were drunkards left over from the earlier event? Arthur eyed the long sword dubiously; it wouldn’t exactly fit down his trousers.

As they crouched there in the semi-darkness Arthur tried in vain to control his heartbeat as the footsteps of the guard came closer and closer. He felt like he was about to have a stroke and his palms were sweaty as they gripped Excalibur. The guard was going to notice them any second now.

Arthur felt like he couldn’t breathe as the guard stepped into the room they were hiding in. His torch swept first left, and then right, straight towards them and Arthur closed his eyes as they were bathed in light.

And then…

The torch swept away again, the guard’s footsteps remaining slow and steady as he carried on through the gallery.

What the fuck?

They waited until the footsteps had receded into silence, before Merlin dragged Arthur up and out of there.  
They made their way down the stairs, back through Mexico, back past the moai, and down the back stairs towards the exit. The alarm went off as they forced open the fire door and they ran quickly into the night, back towards where they’d parked the car a safe distance away.

It wasn’t until they were standing outside the car that Arthur finally spoke.

“What did you do back there?”

“What?”

“That guard, he should have seen us. He walked straight past us.”

Merlin was silent.

“And the sword! How did you get that out?”

“I told you, I’m good with locks.”

“Merlin, there’s good with locks, and then there’s fucking voodoo. I didn’t see so much as a hair pin anywhere near that case. How did you get the lock open so quickly?”

“I—”

Merlin didn’t have an answer for Arthur. Luckily his floundering explanation was cut short by the sounds of police sirens nearby, joining in discordantly with the already blaring museum alarms.

“Come on, let’s get out of here.”

By the time they crossed the border over into Wales dawn was breaking over the horizon behind them. At around 3am they’d stopped for some hot, strong coffee at the services just outside of Reading, but Arthur hadn’t allowed them to stay for too long and, as Merlin had started to fall asleep on the cheap plastic table, he’d dragged him back to the car.

They arrived in Caerleon before 7am, but already the small town was starting to stir. They parked down by the rugby pitches, and Arthur had the brief idea of catching 40 winks, but Merlin was already clambering out the car and dragging Arthur with him.

It was a beautiful summer’s day. The sky was already a rich blue with barely a wisp of cloud in sight. The sun was just creeping above the tree line, warming up skin and reviving tired eyes.

“Come on, I know a great place for breakfast.”

It turns out Merlin was useful for some things. Breakfast was fresh from the local bakery, including bacon rolls and hot croissants straight out of the oven. Merlin slathered far too much ketchup over his bacon, and Arthur tried not to think of the mythological sword they had left in the boot of the car. He only hoped that the youths of Wales had better things to do than steal cars this early in the morning.

They stayed sitting outside the bakery for a couple of hours drinking far too many cups of tea until Merlin started to nod off on Arthur’s shoulder. Arthur was torn between waking the other man up or settling down to sleep next to him. The rising sun was just warm enough to doze in, and it offered the promise of a hot summer’s day.

“Come on, Merlin,” shaking him slightly, “we can’t sit here all day.”

Merlin grumbled lightly in response, but gathered his sunglasses up off the table and followed Arthur back out onto the street and they started walking back towards the car.

“So, where are we looking first?”

“Not sure. I thought we should maybe check the amphitheatre and the surrounding area, but the amp is bound to have people in it, it’s pretty much the only tourist attraction round here. We should probably wait until night time.

“Another stealth mission under the cover of darkness?”

Merlin huffed out a small laugh. “Yeah sure, 007.”

Arthur shoved him off the pavement.

“Alright. So the surrounding area?”

“Yeah...” Merlin rubbed the back of his neck and stopped walking. They were outside a small church under the shelter of a large overhanging tree. The graveyard was filled with mossing gravestones and trailing ivy, it looked beautiful, calm.

“In here?”

“I’m not sure. The church is a lot more modern than Arthurian times, but...”

Arthur waited for Merlin to continue, leaning on the railings surrounding the church yard.

“But what?” He eventually prompted when Merlin still hadn’t continued a few minutes later.

“I don’t know. It just feels like we should look inside.”

Arthur looked at Merlin, searchingly, trying to decide whether Merlin was serious or not. He shrugged and turned back towards the church.

“Alright, let’s take a look then.”

They crossed to the end of the lane and entered by the ornate gateway. Arthur was already striding ahead to the main door before he realised that Merlin was wandering around the back of the church, straight across the grass. Arthur nearly called out, but decided against it, and followed Merlin instead. He found him crouched down in front of a grave, fingers outstretched towards the lichen covered stone, head bowed.

Arthur couldn’t make out the name and was just about to say something, ask Merlin what was going on, when the other man spoke in a voice so quiet it almost could have been the wind.

“Hey Da.”

Oh. _Oh_.

Merlin had never mentioned his father. In all their talking over the past couple of days Merlin has told Arthur about growing up with his memories, about the difficulties he’d had with his mother, blaming her when he was younger. But he’d never mentioned a father.

Arthur withdrew back towards the main gate to give Merlin some privacy.

Merlin joined him some five minutes later, eyes suspiciously red but Arthur didn’t mention it. They headed into the church together, to cool stone interior already offering them some respite from the heat of the sun, despite it still only being mid-morning. There was no sign of a vicar or pastor, and Arthur went to sit in the front row of pews whilst Merlin worked his way around the interior, prodding and poking at the walls muttering things under his breath. Arthur wondered whether Merlin really thought they’d find something in here, or if it was just a way to visit his father’s grave.

In the cool, calm quiet of the church Arthur managed to nod off before Merlin was finished with his exploration. Next thing he knew it was nearly an hour later as Merlin sat down next to him.

“Find anything?” His voice croaky with sleep.

Merlin sighed heavily. “No...”

Arthur glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, and figured he may as well ask. “Merlin. Did you think we’d find anything, or was this just...?” He couldn’t quite finish his sentence, unsure of what words to use, but Merlin understand him anyway.

“Yes. No. I don’t know. I thought I felt something. I’ve learnt to trust my feelings over the years; objects connected to you, to me, to our past, always seem to have their own way of speaking to me.”

“Have a chat do they?” Arthur’s tone was dry, mocking.

“Not literally, you prat. I’m just aware of them. Excalibur, your ring, the sta—”

Arthur wondered what Merlin had been about to say, and if it had anything to do with the mysterious bundle he had secreted away into the boot of the car when he thought Arthur hadn’t been looking.

“I thought I felt that here too, but maybe it was just wishful thinking. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

It feels like it should be dark when they exit the church and so the blinding sunlight takes Arthur by surprise.

“Where next?”

“I thought we could check out the museum?”

“The museum? No offence Merlin, I know you love museums and old shit, but shouldn’t we be searching for the stone? I thought you said we should check out the area surrounding the amphitheatre?”

“Yeah, we should. But didn’t you see?” Merlin sat down on the old stone bench inside the gatehouse and Arthur joined him a moment later rubbing his temples. He really needed some more sleep. Wasn’t Merlin tired?

“See what?” Arthur’s words were slow, like he was talking to a particularly dense child.

“I’d forgotten, but they’re digging here at the moment.”

“Digging?” Arthur’s brain feels like it’s moving at half speed and for one absurd moment he has a vision of children digging in the sand building one giant sandcastle.

“Yeah, digging. You know, archaeology?”

“Oh, right.”

“There’s some students from Cardiff Uni. I should have remembered sooner, I’ve been reading loads about it, following them on twitter, trying to see if they’re found anything real, anything useful.”

“Have they?”

Merlin shook his head softly. “Just some Roman stuff, it’s all pretty cool but not, you know.” Not you, Merlin wanted to say, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to admit out loud just how much his whole life really was about Arthur, past and present. Not that Arthur couldn’t have figured it out for himself by now, of course.

“What does that mean for us?”

“Well, it means they’ve done all the hard labour for us. Or a JCB has.” Merlin offered him a wide smile and Arthur couldn’t help but grin in return. “But,” and as quickly as it came, Merlin’s smile was gone, “it’s not good that they haven’t found anything Arthurian yet. It’s just further proof that this site was meaningless to you.”

“So the stone’s not here?”

“I didn’t say that. I mean, a stone is just a stone, right? It wouldn’t mean anything to them. The best thing for us to do is to get in there and have a look for ourselves.”

“How are we supposed to do that, if the place is full of university students?”

“Community archaeology, Arthur. They’re going to give us a guided tour.” Merlin’s grin was back now as he settled his sunglasses back over his eyes.

“A guided tour?”

“Every day at 2pm. Just enough time for us to look around the museum and then grab some lunch. Come on.” He clapped his hands together like a ridiculously enthusiastic school teacher, and he was up and striding across the road before Arthur had even fully processed his words.

“Oh goody,” he replied, sotto voce, and got up to follow.

Merlin only makes Arthur stay in the museum for an hour before they’re allowed to go buy some sandwiches for lunch. And actually, Arthur suspects Merlin would have made them stay for much longer if Arthur hadn’t challenged Merlin to a sword fight with the kid’s dress-up kit plastic swords. Arthur didn’t see what the problem was; at least he hadn’t done it with Excalibur.

They sat in a pub garden for lunch, taking their time and dozing slightly in the warm sunlight.

“Arthur, are you awake?”

“No.” Came back the muffled reply, from where Arthur’s head was pillowed between his arms.

“Let’s go check out some archaeology.”

Arthur groaned in response, but he unfolded himself from the table and followed Merlin back towards the car. Before they reached it (which was thankfully still there, with all the windows attached), they stopped before some tall metals gates leading into a field. Several people were milling around them, and just as Arthur was about to ask Merlin if he was sure this was the right place, someone unlocked the padlock on the gate. It was a young girl, presumably one of the students working on the dig. She was dirty; wearing a check shirt and denim shorts and her bare legs were covered in dust and dirt. There was even dirt under her fingernails. Weren’t girls meant to be well turned out? Merlin was an archaeologist and he wasn’t this dirty. Arthur decided to keep his mouth shut for once, and instead of bothering Merlin he listened in as the girl started her spiel about the site and the work they were doing there.

The field was apparently a Roman storehouse, where anything from grain to armour would have been stored. So far, she joked, they’d just found a lot of bricks and rusty iron nails, but at least it meant there had been a building there. After the initial introduction the girl led them across the field, circumnavigating a small village of tents, towards the main trench. Arthur wondered why it was called a trench, when it was at least 5 metres wide, 15 metres long, and 2 metres deep in some places – far larger than any “trench” he’d ever heard of. He supposed it was some bizarre archaeology terminology.

From what Arthur could see, the trench contained a lot of dirt and some stone slabs. And a score of dirty students. Arthur tuned back into what their guide was saying just in time for the start of the questions.

A rather large American woman spoke up. “Is that the original Roman water pipe there?”

Arthur couldn’t contain the snort of laughter that escaped, and Merlin jabbed his elbow into his ribs for it. When Arthur turned to look at Merlin he was clearly trying to hide a smirk as well. The guide was rolling her eyes.

“No, that would be the modern water pipe, supplying the water to our campsite. Right, feel free to look around the site, but please don’t get too close to the trench.”

The crowd dispersed before Merlin turned to Arthur with a disparaging whisper. “Yes, because that clearly modern pipe was actually made by the Romans. Idiot.” Arthur laughed softly in response. “Ok, so let’s take a look around, see if anything takes our notice.”

“Will we know? I mean you seem to be able to recognise stuff, but will I?”

“How did it feel when you saw Excalibur, when you held it?”

“It felt like...” Arthur didn’t know how to describe it; it had felt like finding something you hadn’t even known was missing, like finally slotting the last jigsaw piece into the puzzle after trying to complete it for months. “It felt like home.”

“Look for that feeling then.”

Arthur nodded solemnly and headed off around the back of the trench, while Merlin headed off towards the finds tent. They walked around the site, separately at first and then together, whispering to each other about possibilities. But they found nothing.

“What about the spoil heap?”

The pile of earth removed from the trench was easily 10 foot high, sloping from ground level up to its peak, where someone had stuck a small flag which read “Empire of Dirt.” Arthur didn’t really fancy any attempt to search through that spoil heap.

“I had a wander over there, but I didn’t get anything. I’m not feeling anything.”

The tour was winding down now, and their guide was attempting to shepherd the wayward guests back out the site towards the main gate.

“Let’s go.” Arthur didn’t argue, and they followed the rest of the group back out onto the road. They headed back over to the car, but instead of getting inside Merlin headed around to the grass and lay down, arms and legs stretched out wide. Arthur hesitated for a second, and then sprawled down next to him.

“This was a complete waste of time. Where are we going next?”

“We’re not leaving.”

“Merlin, there’s nothing here.” Arthur wondered whether Merlin wanted to stay so he could visit his father again, whether he felt some sort of intangible connection to this small sleepy town, because his family was here.

“We haven’t checked the amphitheatre yet.”

_Oh yeah, forgot about that_. Arthur was glad that Merlin had his eyes closed, and couldn’t see the faint embarrassed blush staining Arthur’s cheeks. He never really knew how other people reacted to family, when his experience had been such a mess. Although, he supposed, Merlin’s had been too.

The dozed on the grass at the edge of the rugby pitches for a couple of hours, the heavy sun warming their skin. When Arthur shook Merlin awake at around 6, his cheeks were pink and there were a few freckles starting to show on his nose.

They headed off down towards the river in search of another pub for dinner, and settled in the Hanbury Arms for the evening. At around about 11pm, Merlin decided it was safe to head back to the amphitheatre and have a look around.

It was a beautifully clear sky, lit up by the moon and stars. However once they were inside without the aid of any street lights or a torch (“it’ll give us away, Arthur!”), it was almost impossible to make anything out.

“Merlin”, Arthur hissed, “where are you?”

“I’m right here!” He whispered back, touching Arthur’s arm lightly. “I’ll head round this way, you go that way. Try to touch as much as possible, that’s probably our best bet.”

They each made a full circuit of the amphitheatre, crossing each other half-way round. Arthur tried to touch every single possible stone, and ran his fingers over the grass as well for good measure. He felt nothing more than tiredness and frustration.

“There’s nothing here, is there?” Arthur asked Merlin when they’d reached back at the start.

“No.” Voice laced with disappointment, even in that one short word.

“Let’s head back to the car. We can sleep in there and get an early start in the morning.”

Arthur huffed in reply, not really fancying a night in the car when there were several good pubs practically within spitting distance where you could rent a room for the night. He was too tired to argue though, and followed Merlin’s silhouette out of the field and back onto the tarmac of the rugby club car park. About halfway over to the car, Merlin stopped dead still, head moving quickly from side to side.

“What was that?” Merlin whispered sharply into the darkness. Arthur hadn’t heard anything and he shrugged before remembering that Merlin probably couldn’t see him.

“I didn’t hear anything, Merlin. It’s probably your imagination getting the better of you.”

Just as Arthur finished speaking, Merlin heard it again. A long slow howl, followed by a snuffling noise nearby. Far too close and coming closer. A sharp intake of breath from Arthur told Merlin that he had heard it that time too.

“Get the tent out of the car. Right now.”

“What? Merlin, if there’s something out there, I’m definitely sleeping in the car!” Arthur sounded slightly hysterical he knew, but he just didn’t care.

“Arthur. Just do it.”

The two men ran the remaining distance to the car, Arthur yanking open the boot to grab the tent, whilst Merlin scrabbled around in the front for something.

The howl came again, echoing out across the empty rugby pitches and vibrating down Arthur’s spine. This time, another howl answered it from behind them.

“Fuck. Arthur, run. Back to the amphitheatre. Run!”

They slammed the car doors shut, Arthur having enough presence of mind to press the button to lock it, before heading back over to the amphitheatre at full pelt. It wasn’t until they had vaulted the fence and were panting for breath right in the centre of the structure that either spoke again.

“Merlin, I don’t think this is a good idea.”

Merlin’s voice was earnest in the blackness. “Trust me Arthur. Even though the stone wasn’t here, there’s power in this site. We’re far safer here than in the car. Here, take this.” Something cold and sharp was thrust into Arthur’s hands; Excalibur. Arthur didn’t let it distract him.

“But, there’s wolves or something. Wolves can’t open car doors!”

“I don’t think it’s wolves, Arthur.” But he didn’t elaborate any further.

They managed to get the tent set up even though they could barely see in the darkness, and they crawled inside and burrowed into their sleeping bags. Arthur kept Excalibur cradled close to his chest, inside his sleeping bag with him. If the wolves made it into the tent, at least he’d have some shot at self defence.

The howling continued on throughout the night, and Arthur constantly strained his ears to hear that snuffling noise again. He slept fitfully, snapping awake suddenly, expecting claws to be ripping through the canopy. Several times he awoke to find Merlin muttering something under his breath, but the other man appeared to be sleeping and wouldn’t answer Arthur’s questions. One time he thought he’d heard screams that had jolted him into wakefulness, but as he lay there in the darkness he heard nothing, not even the howling.

Eventually morning came, and the light of the sun warmed the inside of the tent. The night had been cold, and the ground hard, and Arthur was glad when Merlin told him it was safe to return to the car. The packed up the tent quickly in silence, and then headed back out to the car park.

The car was intact, but all the windows had been smashed, and the contents ransacked. Arthur was suddenly extremely glad that not only had they not slept in the car, but that Merlin had brought Excalibur with them as well. He clutched the sword tightly to his chest as they scraped the remaining glass out of the window frames.

When they’d loaded the camping gear back into the back, they’d found that the car battery was flat and the car wouldn’t start.

“I don’t understand,” Arthur complained. “It’s a brand new car, it’s not like we left the headlights on or anything!”

Merlin offered no explanation, merely suggested that they should head on over to the archaeology field, and ask one of them for a jump start. There’d had been a few cars parked alongside the tents when they’d been there for the site tour yesterday.

However, when they headed over, they found the field completely deserted. Not a single tent in sight. The trench was still there, with the Roman stone flooring laid bare, and so were the large corrugated steel huts being used as office space, but there was no sign of life, or people. The few cars that had been there yesterday stood in the same places, all their windows had been smashed in as well.

As they headed further into field they found small scraps of what could only be tent material and shorn off parts of guy ropes. As they reached nearer the cars, they found spots of what could be blood scattered throughout the grass, along with material that looked more like clothing than tent. Neither examined either of these things more closely.

Merlin managed to hot wire one of the older looking cars, and they drove it out into the car park to hook it up to theirs. They left the old car abandoned by the rugby pitches and Arthur had the feeling that its owner was never going to come and collect it.

They were out of Wales and headed up the M5 before Arthur found his voice.

“Merlin...”

He kept his eyes on the road rather than sparing a glance at Merlin who was slumped in the passenger seat, but he knew he was listening.

“Where did all the students go?”

Merlin was silent for so long Arthur thought that perhaps he was actually asleep and not just feigning, until he spoke.

“Arthur.” His name was no more than a sigh falling heavily from Merlin’s lips.

“What do you know that I don’t?”

When Merlin was silent again, Arthur turned to look at him this time.

“Merlin! At least tell me where we’re going now.”

Merlin just shook his head in response, eyes glazed as he watched the road ahead.

“Not here, Arthur. Keep your eyes on the road.”

Arthur had half a mind to pull over onto the hard shoulder right then and demand some answers from Merlin. Part of him, however, didn’t want the answers to his questions, didn’t want to know what had happened to all those students. Instead Arthur stayed in the outside lane doing a comfortable 90, eyes straight ahead and didn’t look at Merlin again.

At junction eleven Merlin finally spoke, telling Arthur to leave the motorway, and as they headed out across Gloucestershire, Merlin finally started to answer some of Arthur’s questions.

“You want to join the A40 and then the A429 towards Stow.”

“What’s in Stow?”

“Nothing, we’re headed through there towards the Rollright Stones.”

“More stones, Merlin?” Merlin was happy to hear a slight teasing lilt to Arthur’s tone.

“More stones.” He confirmed.

“And you think the stone is there?”

“Well, my research said it should have been at Caerleon. But even before we went, something hadn’t felt right about that. I mean, I know obviously something as innocuous as a stone could have been moved all over the place without anyone even realising what they were carrying, but Caerleon never meant anything to you, Arthur. It just didn’t feel right.”

“And the Rollright Stones do mean something? I’ve been there before?”

“Yes, you have. Only once, like Caerleon though. But the Rollrights existed long before your time, the connection is much more symbolic than literal. You’ll understand when we get there.”

Arthur decided not to push Merlin for any more information, and instead took him at his word that he would explain more once they got there. He’d never really been in this area of the country before. He’d visited Stratford Upon Avon on a school trip once and had fallen asleep during the play they’d watched at the theatre, but other than his time up in Edinburgh and the journey back down, he’d never really gone further north than Reading.

They stopped in Stow for some lunch, and the September sunshine was hot on the backs of their necks. Arthur could see a few freckles starting to form on Merlin’s nose. They reached the stones in the late afternoon, just as the man occupying the information stand was packing up to go home.

“Hello there!” The man greeted them, holding out a weather-beaten hand.

“Hi, how are you?” Merlin was all smiles with the older man, Arthur merely nodded stiffly, unsure of what they were doing, or if this man was going to hinder their plans.

“You lads here to visit the stones?”

“Yeah, is that alright?”

“No problem at all. Site’s open all night long, if you so fancied! We do ask our visitors to leave a small contribution if they can. Not an entrance fee, mind, but just something for the upkeep.”

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

“I’m just headed off now. Were you boys in need of any information on the site? I can sell you a book about the local mythology.” He looked at them hopefully.

Arthur eyed the man dubiously in return, certain that Merlin could probably write a better book himself.

“No, I think we’re ok. I’ve been before. I just wanted to show my friend here, since we were in the area.”

“Of course, no problem at all.”

“Thanks, that’s great.”

“Well, I’d best be off then, before the missus starts to wonder why I’m late.”

The man shook hands with both Merlin and Arthur, wishing them a good day, before he strolled back through the gate onto the road whistling a tune that Arthur didn’t recognise.

“What a lovely old man.” Merlin turned to smile at Arthur, his mood considerably lighter than earlier that morning.

“Yes, delightful,” Arthur responded dryly. “So where are these stones?”

They were standing just inside the small iron kissing gate that lead into the site off the road, with the old man’s small information hut, now locked up for the night just in front of them. To the right, Arthur thought that he could maybe make out something through the heavy foliage, but he wasn’t sure.

“This way”, Merlin replied, and as they rounded the corner the stones came into view.

Arthur wasn’t quite sure what he’d been expecting. He’d seen pictures of Stonehenge before, obviously, but that was about the sum total of his knowledge on stone circles. The Rollright circle was on a much smaller scale, with most of the stones no taller than waist high. The whole circle was about the same length across as the inner circle at Stonehenge, some 30 metres or so. The back of the circle, nearest the road was surrounded by heavy foliage, however the other half gave way to rolling open countryside. The view stretched for miles, out towards where the sun would soon be setting. Arthur couldn’t believe that view, so used to the towering skyscrapers of London and the urban world. As he drank in the sight around him, it took him a moment to realise that Merlin was talking.

“... called the King’s Men.”

“What?”

Merlin looked at him in exasperation. “I was saying that the Rollright stones actually consists of three sites, this circle here is called the King’s Men. Then you have the King Stone, and the Whispering Knights. Folklore has it that a rich man was riding out across the land when he came across an old witch. The witch challenged the man, telling him -

_Seven long strides thou shalt take, says she_  
_And if Long Compton thou canst see,_  
_King of England thou shalt be!_

“The man accepted the witch’s challenge, but as he took seven steps forward, the ground rose before him, blocking the view of the village below. The King and all his men were turned to stone by the witch.

“And is that meant to be me?”

“No, that particular rhyme and story dates to the 16th century, but the stones have been here since around 2000 BC. Folklore existed about this site even during the time of King Arthur.”

“And that’s why I came here?”

Merlin gave Arthur a sharp look, unsure whether he was remembering or being unusually perceptive.

“Yes. It was before you were crowned king. The folklore at the time was that if the King could hear the Knights whispering, then his court was not true, and he would be betrayed. The whispering knights were meant to be plotting against the King, and in the later folklore, they were in a league with the witch. However, she turned them to stone as well for betraying their king.”

“I was betrayed.” Arthur whispered, and Merlin could tell that now, Arthur was remembering. Remembering Morgana’s betrayal, Agravaine’s betrayal.

“Yes, you came here, and you heard the Whispering Knights but...”

“But what?”

Merlin didn’t answer him though. He didn’t want Arthur to remember how angry he’d been at Merlin. How he hadn’t believed the folklore, couldn’t possibly fathom that he was being betrayed. That awareness would come later, much later. Arthur let him keep his silence, for now.

“So why is the stone here then?”

“Here, in the circle. I don’t think it is. Take a walk round the circle, though. See if you notice anything.”

Arthur did as he was told, and walked slowly round the circle clockwise. He made sure to touch each and every stone in turn, waiting for that thrill of recognition that he’d felt with the ring. As he walked, Merlin started talking again from his place in the centre of the circle.

“The parallels of recognising the true King is why I think the stone might be here. The mythology surrounding this site has persisted practically unchanged over thousands of years. I think the King Stone may be keeping guard over the, well, the King’s Stone.

“Ok, let’s go over to the King Stone then. That’s why we’re here, right?”

“Let’s check out the Knights first.” Arthur could hear the apprehension in Merlin’s voice, but didn’t question it; he knew why Merlin was nervous. What would Arthur hear from the Whispering Knights?

Merlin led Arthur back out onto the road and down into the field with the Knights. The tight cluster of stones was surrounded in a rusted iron fencing, apparently to stop tourists from chipping off souvenir chunks of stone to take home with them. However, it was still possible to reach over and touch the stones within. Merlin held his breath as Arthur stepped up to the stone, reaching his hand to place it on top of the tallest one. Arthur stayed there, not moving, barely breathing for a full minute before Merlin lost all patience.

“Well?! Can you hear them?”

Arthur slowly removed his hand from the stone forced a smile onto his face before he turned to face Merlin.

“Can’t hear anything. I think your mythology is a load of rubbish, Merlin.”

The smile on Arthur’s face told Merlin he was only teasing though and Merlin was relieved to find that the Knights were no longer whispering a plot against him.

“Come on then, to the King!”

As soon as Arthur approached the King Stone, he knew something was different. It felt like there was electricity in the air, like there was a thunder storm brewing around them even though the sky was a bright, clear blue. This is what had been missing at Caerleon. The stone was here. He heard Merlin’s intake of breath and knew that he could feel it too.

“I’ll get the spade out the car”, whispered Merlin, and he headed back out onto the road.

Arthur barely noticed, just carried on walking steadily closer to the King Stone until he was pressed up against the iron fencing surrounding it. The fenced off area was larger here than at the Knights, and it was impossible to reach over to touch the stone. Arthur didn’t care, he lightly pulled himself over the railings, avoiding the spikes on the tops of the bars, and placed both hands flat on the stone.

He jumped back suddenly, as if he had been electrocuted, and sparks flew between the stone and his fingertips. Fuck. He hadn’t been expecting that.

“Arthur?”

Merlin was behind him, holding out the spade over the top of the railings. Arthur took it, before Merlin climbed over as well.

“It’s here, isn’t it?” Arthur’s voice was quiet, as if anything louder than a whisper would break the spell being woven around them.

“Yes. Get digging.”

Arthur didn’t start digging straight away. Instead, he put the spade down on the ground next to him and got down on his hands and knees, running his fingers through the grass. The grass was soft, but it still felt like it was buzzing with electricity; it was one of the strangest sensations that Arthur had ever experienced. As he crawled round the back of the stone, he knew.

His vision went black, and suddenly he was lying on that battlefield again, Mordred looming overhead. He felt the rock beneath him. A noise like thunder clapped overhead, and then Arthur was back on his hands and knees. He stood up, grabbed the spade, and started to dig. After a few good shovels, he struck something hard. He dropped to his knees again, and Merlin joined him by his side, both their hands scrabbling in the dirt. And then Arthur’s fingers touched it. That noise again, like thunder. Merlin clapped his hands over his ears, and Arthur knew that he had heard it too this time. As Arthur looked away from Merlin and down at his hands again, he realised that something was glowing. A pure bright white was emanating from the hole beneath his fingertips; the stone.

Clearing the dirt away from the sides, Arthur managed to pull the stone free. It sat there, filthy in his hands, yet glowing brighter than a thousand candles.

“Fuck. Me.”

They hurried back to the car, Arthur hiding the stone under his jacket. The precaution was unwarranted though, as they met no one else, not even any cars driving down the secluded country lane.

"There's a compartment in the boot, put it in there." Merlin told Arthur when they got to the car.

Arthur looked at Merlin, perplexed. What on earth was Merlin going on about? Since when was there a secret compartment in the boot of his brand new car? But there was; the carpeted floor of the boot lifted up to reveal a hidden space underneath, 3 foot wide, and about half as long back. It was empty, except for that same mysterious bundle that Arthur had seen Merlin putting into the car the day their journey had started, but that he'd seen no sign of since. It hadn't been in their tent when the car had been ransacked, so Arthur had assumed he'd either imagined it, or that it was long gone, stolen. His fingers ached to reach out and touch it, find out what it was. He was sure he could hear a faint whispering sound coming from it, just like he'd heard from the Knights. Yes, the Knights had Whispered to him. Arthur wasn't sure why he'd pretended otherwise to Merlin; surely Merlin wasn't going to betray him. But... He'd kept quiet, feigned nonchalance. There wasn't anybody else who could betray him, it was only the two of them on this mad road trip. And yet, the thought of Merlin being a traitor was as unfathomable as blue grass. It couldn't be true, it wasn't possible. So Arthur had kept silent, he figured he'd cross that hurdle if, or when, they came to it.

"Come on Arthur, let's get out of here." Merlin's voice floated back from the front of the car, and Arthur snatched his fingers away from the mysterious bundle, like a child being caught with their fingers in the cookie jar. He placed the stone down next to it, and repositioned the carpet into place. He quickly loaded the camping gear back on top, and slammed the boot shut. He'd ask Merlin later, he was getting answers tonight whether Merlin liked it or not.

They left the Midlands behind them as the sun set and made their way to Bristol for the night. After a relaxed dinner and a couple of pints they secluded themselves in their hotel room, each man on their separate beds, and Merlin finally started to answer some of Arthur's questions.

Arthur was staring into nothingness, casually tossing the stone backwards and forwards between his hands, mindful of Merlin's presence, and his ongoing silence. The stone was still glowing, although fainter than before, and it hadn't made that noise like thunder again.

"Arthur, stop that." Merlin was lying down on his bed, one arm thrown over his eyes to block out the light.

"Stop what?"

"Fidgeting."

Arthur paused in his movement, weighing the stone carefully in both hands. "Well talk to me then."

"Ok," Merlin replied as he sat up to face Arthur. "What do you want to know?"

Arthur didn't know where to start, and he blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

"What's that package in the boot of the car? How come it didn't get stolen in Caerleon? In fact, what the holy fuck happened there?"

Merlin shook his head in response. "Start at the beginning, Arthur." He chastened, like a patient teacher at the end of a long school day.

Arthur took a minute to order his thoughts, organising everything, every one of his questions into chronological order. That night, in Merlin's flat, when he'd really started to believe in who they were. He'd felt in control of the situation then, thought he knew where he stood, and the order of things. When had everything started to spiral out of his grasp and out of his control? The museum.

"Why didn't the guard see us at the museum? How did you get the sword out of that case?"

Merlin sat there in silence, chewing his lip in what Arthur knew now was a nervous habit of his. Why was Merlin nervous?

Merlin didn't know how to answer Arthur. He could remember all too clearly how well this conversation had gone last time, back in Camelot. The revelation of Merlin's magic, the disgust and betrayal in Arthur's eyes. Something had broken between them that day, an irreparable chasm spread out. Merlin knew, with the perfect clarity of hindsight, that the distance between them had been their downfall, had been the reason why Mordred had been able to gain the upper hand on the battlefield. Merlin's magic had existed to serve Arthur, and from the moment that Arthur had rejected that magic, even though he had accepted its use later, had welcomed it on the battlefield, still it refused to cooperate fully, refused to bend to Merlin's every thought.

If Arthur responded in the same way tonight, then all hope was lost. Already Merlin could feel his magic entwining itself around Arthur, binding the other man to him with a bond stronger than life or death. If Arthur refused Merlin's magic now, there would be nothing that could save them. Merlin needed his king to rescue the dragon, needed the magic to flow between them and restore power to the land. Yes, Merlin was magic, but Arthur was the land itself, the embodiment of its lifeblood, and without them both their plans were doomed.

Merlin could sense that Arthur was getting inpatient with his silence, but still the words wouldn't come out. They were stuck in his throat choking him, suffocating him. Just as black spots started to dance across his vision, he felt a light pressure on his leg. Arthur had reached across the gap between the beds and was now looking at Merlin in concern, hand warm on his leg. The soft look on Arthur's face loosened Merlin's tongue.

"I'm magic" he whispered. At Arthur's raised eyebrow he continued, louder. "I have magic."

Arthur drew his hand back from Merlin’s leg and sat there in stunned silence as he tried to process Merlin's admission. Eventually he spoke.

"Can I see?"

Merlin had screwed his eyes shut when he had spoken, as if by blocking out any sight, he could block out the rejection he was sure was headed his way. He opened them again at Arthur's question.

He held out his right hand before him, and stared Arthur straight in the eye. He spoke no words, but after a second's hesitation the blue of Merlin's eyes was drowned out by glorious molten gold. Arthur thought briefly that this was the magic itself, that Merlin could change his eye colour at will. But then he sensed something else, and looking down he saw a glowing ball of light in Merlin's outstretched hand. For a moment he thought it was the stone again, but then he realised it was still beside him on the bed. The light had a blue incandescence to it, and with a slight gesture from Merlin it floated up away from his hand to hover in the air between them. Arthur was left speechless, and he stared open-mouthed as Merlin finally let the light dissipate, his eyes slowly returning to their natural blue.

Merlin stared at Arthur not saying a word, hardly daring to breathe as he awaited his reaction. Arthur stared at Merlin in return as he attempted to collect his thoughts.

It made sense, didn't it, Arthur thought. If they were the reincarnations of the famous king, and his renowned magician, why wouldn't this Merlin have magic? Eventually Arthur raised himself out of his stupor enough to speak, mindful of the million and one questions swarming around like a maelstrom inside his head. He settled for asking the most straightforward one; why did it matter now?

"So why now? What's so important that we've been reincarnated?" Arthur questioned Merlin, ignoring the perhaps more pressing question of how on earth Merlin had magic that denied all the laws of science for a few more moments, as he struggled to comprehend this new universe he found himself in.

"We were meant to bring magic back to the land, but you died too soon." Merlin didn't mention that it was his fault, that he had allowed Arthur to die because he hasn't been able to fully fix the broken trust between them. Arthur was trusting him now, and was seemingly accepting Merlin's magic as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

"The magic persisted," he continued, "but not as strong as it should have been. Not as unstoppable. It survived though, throughout the centuries even up to the present day if you know where to look for it. There are people and places that are stronger than others, places where the magic still flows strong enough to feel, for those who can recognise it."

"Feel? What does magic feel like?" Arthur was having a hard time wrapping his head around the concept of magic that wasn't children's party tricks, coloured ribbons and pulling rabbits out of hats. But he'd suspected something was off since the night in the museum, when Merlin had opened that locked cabinet with barely a blink of the eye, and how that guard had walked straight past them. Merlin's display of magic, the glowing ball of light he had just generated from thin air in front of Arthur's eyes had only cemented Arthur's suspicions that something else was going on; like as a child when you finally realise that there's a man behind the screen, making the puppets move after all.

"Do you really need to ask me that, Arthur?" Merlin gave Arthur a soft look from underneath his long lashes, blue eyes staring intently at Arthur but not judging. As if Merlin knew that Arthur needed a few moments to assimilate all this new information.

"Electricity?" He remembered how the earth had felt around the King Stone, the feel of lightening jumping to his fingertips. That was magic?

"Yes." Merlin barely breathed his answer, scared that Arthur would reject this new knowledge.

Arthur was silent for a few moments too long, and Merlin was ready to bolt.

"Can I..." He faltered, and Merlin looked up from picking at his fingernails. "Can I feel your magic?"

Merlin's eyes flew to Arthur's in surprise, impossibly wide. He didn't say anything, just stretched out his hands over the gap between the two beds. Arthur shifted over, and reached out to grasp Merlin's hand in return. Nothing happened for a few moments, and then that same bright burning ball of life from before starting to glow in Merlin's hands.

Arthur could feel the power thrumming through Merlin’s skin, skittering across his fingertips. He reached out his free hand and tentatively pushed his fingers into the blue light. It felt simultaneously both similar and yet completely different to what he had felt at the Rollrights. It felt warm and peaceful, like a child’s worn comfort blanket, and yet his whole body hummed with energy, as if he was a live power line. It was exhilarating. When he was finally able to tear his eyes away from the jumble of hands and light in front of him he saw that Merlin's eyes were glowing the same molten gold colour as before.

They stayed like that for longer than Arthur would like to admit before Merlin broke the contact between them, allowing the light to fall away. The hotel room seemed impossibly dark in the wake of its absence, and Arthur felt as if his eyes had stopped working properly, as if he would never again see something as clear as that blue light and Merlin’s golden eyes. Arthur was the first to speak.

“Merlin...” His voice was hushed, awed.

Merlin blushed and looked away from Arthur’s scrutiny, uncomfortable with the attention he was receiving. Will had always accepted Merlin’s magic as something normal, something humdrum, but for Arthur it really was magic; something completely unfathomable.

Merlin cleared his throat loudly before Arthur could continue, and his tone was all business again as he starting talking.

“Early start in the morning. We’re heading down to Cornwall.”

It took Arthur a moment to clear his head, shaking it like a dog emerging from water.

“Cornwall? Never been there.” His voice was rough, sounding like it hadn’t been used in months.

“Tintagel. Arthur’s birthplace.”

Arthur merely nodded in reply and didn’t ask any questions. He wasn’t sure his brain would be able to process any more revelations that night. They got ready for bed in silence, and once the lights were off and they were plunged into darkness, Merlin wasn’t sure if he’d imagined the soft ‘goodnight’ from across the room or not.

Merlin eyed Arthur warily the next morning, worried that his magnanimous nature and easy acceptance of his magic would have disappeared in the cold light of dawn. His fears proved to be unfounded though, and Arthur seemed more relaxed than ever in Merlin's presence. There was something though, something in the quick, subtle looks that Arthur would shoot his way every now and again. There was something Arthur wasn't telling him.

They had a quick breakfast in the nearest Spoons, and were soon on the M5 heading south towards Cornwall. Neither of them spoke during the journey, apart from Merlin occasionally giving directions, and if he noticed how Arthur gripped the steering wheel a little too tightly at times, he didn't mention it.

Soon they reached Exeter and the motorway bled out into smaller A and B roads. Arthur still kept up a steady 70 whenever he could, although why he was rushing towards their destination he wasn't sure. He felt like there was a knot inside his chest, a knot that was being pulled tighter every hour, and the sooner they arrived, the better.

As morning turned to afternoon, the dual carriageways disappeared, and eventually even the roads became single track, cars travelling both ways on the narrow lanes, surrounded by tall hedges and ploughed fields.

"Take the next left."

Arthur merely grunted in reply, keeping his eyes peeled for the turning. The villages round here all had ridiculous Cornish names, and Arthur knew he wouldn't be able to pinpoint their location on a map. He trusted Merlin had some idea where they were though, and continued to follow his directions without question.

The next left turned out to be a long driveway, no longer bordered by hedges, with a line of moss growing down the centre of the lane. A rotting wooden stall stood at the end of the drive, displaying an assortment of flowers and veg. A hand-painted sign requested that people leave an appropriate donation in the box provided if they wanted anything. Arthur almost did a double take at that - they really trusted people around here.

The drive carried on for over a mile, until an old farmhouse came into view. As they drew closer, Arthur could see an old sheepdog lying outside the front door, but there was no other sign of life. He threw a questioning glance at Merlin; what did this place have to do with Arthurian legend?

As if sensing Arthur's question Merlin spoke, "we're here".

Arthur parked the car outside the house, carefully avoiding the dog who had raised its head in curiosity, before turning to Merlin.

"And where exactly is here?"

Merlin paused in the motion of opening his door, turning back towards Arthur, almost as if he had forgotten the other man was there.

"Oh right, yeah. We're in Cornwall."

"Yes, I'd gathered we’d made it that far" Arthur replied with a roll of his eyes. Honestly, how stupid did Merlin think he was? "I meant more specifically, what are we going to find here? This doesn’t look like a castle, I thought you said the cup would be at Tintagel?”

Merlin blushed slightly and took his hand off the door. "Right, yeah. I forgot. Here we will find dinner and a bed to sleep in." And without waiting for Arthur to reply he opened the door and stepped out of the car, heading over to greet the dog who had risen to its feet, as if it had half a mind to try defending the place. Arthur scoffed at the thought before stepping out of the car as well. He straightened out his clothes, crumpled from so many hours driving, and walked over to where Merlin was now stroking the dog behind the ears.

"Hey Bess, how you doing?" Arthur heard him say as he drew close.

As Arthur bent down to stroke the dog as well, the front door creaked on its hinges and an old man appeared. His hair was white, but he still wore it long. He was wearing worn brown trousers and a simple white shirt, and he broke into a smile when he saw Merlin.

“Merlin, my boy!”

“Gaius! How are you?” Merlin’s smile was just as wide in return and he walked over to embrace the old man.

“Fine, thank you, very fine. Care to introduce me to your friend?”

“Gaius, this is Arthur. Arthur, this is Gaius, my old personal tutor from my first year at university.”

The two men shook hands as Gaius chided Merlin. “Less of that old nonsense, boy, there’s life in me yet.”

Gaius welcomed both men inside, and as he bustled around making tea Arthur explained to Merlin how Gaius had been the only person he’d ever told; about his magic, his real identity. Gaius had been a great help to Merlin throughout his first three years at university, and when he’d retired back down to Cornwall he and Merlin had stayed in contact.

“I hope you don’t mind us imposing on you like this. We’re on our way down to Tintagel and we sort of need a place to stay for the night.”

Gaius sighed and raised a disapproving eyebrow at Merlin. Even Arthur could tell that the old man didn’t mean it though.

“Tintagel eh?” And the look he gave wasn’t lost on either of them.

They spent the rest of the evening filling Gaius in on their progress so far. They ate a simple stew for dinner, and there was more than enough for the three of them even though Gaius lived alone. Arthur wondered if he had known they were coming. At around one in the morning tales of sword and stones had been swapped for reminiscences between Gaius and Merlin, and Arthur left them to it heading off to sleep.

They started early in the morning again after a simple breakfast of bread and honey. They reached Tintagel at little before noon, and parked the car up in the site car park. They stopped in one of the many pubs, and languished there over a hearty lunch. They needed to wait until dark before they attempted to find the cup, or else they risked drawing unwanted attention towards themselves. However, the site didn’t allow visitors in that late, so they would have to enter in the late afternoon and then conceal themselves somewhere until later. Merlin, who had visited before, assured Arthur that this was more than possible, so Arthur just nodded and sipped at his lager. Merlin’s wisdom had proved useful so far.

Soon enough it was mid-afternoon, and they headed down the hill towards the main entrance. Merlin flashed a membership card, but Arthur had to pay an entrance fee. He was outraged, and he wanted to ask them if they knew who he was? How could they charge him to visit his own castle, he’d hissed to Merlin after they’d passed the ticket booth.

Merlin had laughed. “This is Tintagel Arthur, not Camelot. But I don’t think that would work either way.”

Arthur had sulked at Merlin for all of about two minutes until he started to take in the surroundings. The site was amazing. Towering cliffs and green grassland were interspersed with crumbling ruins of the old castle, spread out over a huge area. They circled the whole site once, before Merlin stopped at a cliff edge and pointed down below them.

“That’s Merlin’s cave.”

“Yes, that looks like the kind of place you’d be at home.” Arthur replied, smirking at Merlin.

Merlin elbowed him in the ribs in response. They picked their way down the cliff; an uneven path had been formed linking the top of the cliff with the cave and the sea beyond. When they reached the bottom Merlin spoke.

“Can you feel it?”

Arthur was about to ask ‘what?’, but then he realised he could feel it. What at first he had attributed to the roaring of the waves was coming from inside him; a roaring that ran over his skin, and buzzed under his fingertips. Magic.

“It’s here.”

Merlin nodded in reply. “We need to wait though, we can’t let anyone see.”

They walked further into the cave and hunkered down to wait. Despite it being only September it was cold in the dank cave, and Arthur tried to keep him limbs moving in order to keep warm. It felt like time wasn’t moving at all, until eventually Arthur noticed that the cave entrance, which had been dry before, was now covered in softly lapping waves.

“Merlin. The tide’s coming in.” It wasn’t a question, but it wasn’t merely a statement either. They couldn’t stay here much longer.

“It’s time,” came Merlin’s reply.

He stood up and walked over to an expanse of rock that looked no different to Arthur, and placed his hand flat upon it. He started talking under a breath, and as Arthur inched closer he realised it was in no language he’d ever heard before. His eyes were closed, but Arthur was sure they were glowing gold underneath their lids. Merlin stayed that way, eyes closed and whispering, hand firm against the wall as the water continued to encroach into the cave.

Arthur glanced with ever increasingly nervousness between the motionless Merlin, and the sea water which was now lapping around their ankles. Nothing was happening. Were they in the wrong place again? Arthur decided to give Merlin the benefit of the doubt for slightly longer, but as the water started to swirl around their ankles, he spoke.

“Merlin, we can’t stay here much longer. Is it here?”

Merlin turned to him, opening his eyes and Arthur watched the blue chase the gold away.

“It’s here, I just, need more time.”

Arthur nodded once and Merlin turned back to the cave wall; eyes closed, hand flat, lips muttering. Still nothing happened, and once the water reached waist height Arthur knew they couldn’t wait any longer. If they stayed in here too long, the mouth of the cave would be completely submerged. This wasn’t worth dying over, they could come back tomorrow and try again. He grabbed onto Merlin’s free wrist as he shouted over the sound of the rushing water.

“Merlin, the tide is coming in too fast, we’ve got to go NOW.”

“Just one more minute, Arthur. It’s got to be here.”

“No, come on!”

Arthur was about to drag Merlin away from the cave wall when he saw sparks in the wake of the rising waves. The water was already chest height, but now Arthur was as reluctant to leave as Merlin was. Arthur really hoped Merlin knew how to swim. Merlin was muttering words under his breath that Arthur couldn’t understand as the water continue to rise steadily around them. When the water began to rush over their heads, Merlin took a deep breath and plunged underwater, Arthur followed suit a moment later, and opened his eyes trying to see Merlin. The salt water burned his eyes, but Arthur could see clear as day, the light now emanating for the wall almost too bright to bear. A second later the light went out, and he felt Merlin’s hand clamp round his wrist, dragging him towards the cave opening. How Merlin knew when they were out of the cave, Arthur had no idea, but they rose to the surface spluttering out salty water into the clear night air. Merlin was holding up an object in his hand as he tried to keep his head above the water, beaming like Christmas had come early. It was the cup. Arthur gave out a woop of delight.

“We got it?!”

“We got it!” Merlin replied, almost having to shout to be heard over the crashing of the waves.

“Let’s get out of this water then.”

The water was freezing, and Arthur could already feel his limbs starting to lock together, feel hypothermia trying to dig its lethal claws in. They struck out towards the low beach ahead and as they got closer they could see a figure waving to them from the shore. Unsure of whether it was a site employee or not, they started to circle round until the man’s voice travelled out across the waves towards them.

“Arthur! Merlin! This way.”

They both stopped for a moment, looking at each other in shock, before Merlin shrugged his shoulders and started swimming again, this time straight for the figure. When they got close the man waded in and helped drag them ashore.

As the two wet men lay on the shore struggling to regain their breath, Merlin could feel the cup being plucked from his fingers.

“Hey!” He protested, snatching it back.

“Sorry, sorry,” the stranger replied hastily, “I only wanted to look. I’m Alec.”

He held out his hand before him, and Arthur and Merlin both shook it in turn. When Merlin’s skin came into contact with Alec’s he felt a jolt of electricity spark between them. This man was magic. And he knew their names. Merlin couldn’t place him as someone from their past, but if he had magic it must mean that he had read the signs as well; that he knew the battle for magic was drawing near.

He was here to help them, Merlin decided. Helping them ashore was proof enough of that. How else had he known they would be here except through magic? And god knew they needed all the help they could get. Arthur was eying their new recruit warily, and Merlin tried to signify through various winks and wiggles of his eyebrows that Alec could be trusted, that he was one of them.

“Let’s get off his cold cliff then, yes?” Alec asked.

Arthur and Merlin stopped their silent conversation immediately, and followed Alec in a slight stupor, the cold making their minds and movements slow.

* * *

Gwaine Green woke with a start, his head pounding and his mouth dry. How much had he drunk last night? It took him several moments to register the light raindrops falling in his face, and several more to realise that he wasn't in bed, that he wasn’t sixteen anymore and passed out in his mother’s house.

He sat up, groaning, taking in his surroundings with only one eye open, the other screwed shut against the pain rippling out from the back of his head. It wasn't until he reached up and felt the tender lump there that he realised his present state wasn't due to a hangover; he didn’t do that now.

He looked around himself, trying to piece together his hazy memories of how he got here in the first place. He'd been lying on grass, wet from both the early morning dew, and the softly falling rain which must have woken him up. The grass stretched out as far as the eye could see behind him, but stopped about 10 metres in front of him, falling away abruptly into the sheer drop of a cliff face. The crashing of waves from far below confirmed to Gwaine that he was near the sea, but this information left him no closer to figuring out where he was, or understanding how he got there. To his left the sun was working its way above the horizon, and he estimated that it had risen barely half an hour ago. A quick glance at his watch show a cracked face and the hands frozen in time at 8.37, which Gwaine could only assume was from the night before. Unless he'd been knocked unconscious for an epically long time, it was still only September, and sunrise would be much earlier than that. Gwaine estimated the time to be around half seven therefore, and if this was farmland the owner should be be awake and working by now.

This thought spurred Gwaine to his feet, anxious to piece together the events of last night. He head swam dangerously as he stood up and black spots danced before his eyes. He stood still for a moment to steady himself before he started walking, and headed the short distance to the cliff face, wondering if the sea would offer him any clues. The surrounding coastline was jagged and he thought he could see some buildings, or some sort of structure further down the coast, but his head was pounding and his eyesight was still blurry so he couldn’t be entirely sure. With a sigh he turned round and headed away from the precipice, eager to find this farmer and see if he could cadge a bit of breakfast off him as well as directions.

Gwaine had been walking for about 5 minutes before he realised his original assumption was completely wrong. He wasn’t on farmland at all, he was at _Tintagel_ , and suddenly the knowledge of how he had ended up knocked out cold on a cliff came rushing back to him.

Ever since Gwaine had been a child he’d had dreams of being a knight. He’d played dragons and castles as a boy and although his mother had been worried about his imaginary friends, Arthur and Merlin, she hadn’t paid much attention to it. He was an only child; he’d grow out of it eventually. But the thing was, Gwaine hadn’t grown out of it. The dreams he had weren’t the fanciful imaginings of a lonely child, they were pervasive, intense, tales of hardship and death every single night. When he was 10 he stopped mentioning the dreams to his mother, he stopped mentioning Arthur and Merlin, he stopped carrying a toy sword around everywhere he went.

Still the dreams didn’t stop. They plagued his nights, and the memories haunted his days. Every blond man he saw in the street was Arthur, every dark haired man was Merlin. He never had a moment’s peace, and he began to dread going to sleep at night. His schoolwork suffered; after trying to stay awake all night to avoid the dreams he was often too tired to concentrate in school.

At 14 Gwaine started drinking. For the first year or so he had to sneak the alcohol from his house. His mother wasn’t much of a drinker though, and for a while she didn’t notice the missing alcohol. It worked at first, as well. Once Gwaine was so drunk he couldn’t see straight he slept in blissful ignorance, mind completely blank of dreams. By the time he was 16, the drink wasn’t enough. He had no trouble getting served in pubs and off licenses thanks to a growth spurt and early puberty resulting in a line of stubble framing his jaw. He didn’t just drink at night any more either, he drank all day long as well. He drank so that he wouldn’t remember, so that he wouldn’t look for Arthur and Merlin in a crowd. He drank until he couldn’t remember why he was drinking in the first place, until it didn’t work anymore.

One night when he was so drunk he’d passed out of his own doorstep because he was unable to get his key in the lock, the dreams had returned. They’d been on a quest of some kind, but Gwaine had been drunk even in the dream. His coordination had been shot to hell, and his movements too sluggish, his sword too slow. Arthur had been slain before his very eyes. When he woke he thought he heard their voices from inside the house and in a fit of rage, of pure agony at the injustice of it all he’d tried to burn the house down. The sole occupant had been his mother, sleeping peacefully in her bed. Gwaine had still been too drunk, insensitive to her cries, and the firefighters had arrived too late to save her.

Involuntary manslaughter they called it and as a minor he’d been sent to a ‘facility’. They thought he was insane, and perhaps he was. He had a drinking problem that’s for sure. He stayed there for four years, until the government and its doctors had decided he was rehabilitated, that he was normal again. Gwaine knew that he’d never been normal, that he never would be. Not a day had gone by in the last four years that he hadn’t dreamt of Arthur and Merlin. But something had changed within Gwaine. He’d spent four years listening to doctors. At first he’d told them about the dreams, and they’d called him mad. Over the years he’d learnt to lie, until they didn’t have a clue what he was really thinking. It was the only way they’d ever let him leave, after all.

Being called insane every day for four years though had not convinced Gwaine that he was, quite the opposite in fact. Gwaine finally learnt to accept his dreams, just as he had done as a child. Gwaine finally started to _believe_ in his dreams, believe in Arthur and Merlin. So he had to get out, because he had to find them. They were out there something, and the dreams were merely a reminder of that, their presence forever buzzing just under his skin, at the back of his mind. The first thing Gwaine did when he was released wasn’t to go to the pub, as some of his carers had assumed, but to go to a tattoo parlour. He had the names Arthur and Merlin tattooed straight across his heart, a constant reminder of his purpose in life. And he didn’t touch so much as a drop of alcohol, hadn’t done since.

After that Gwaine had started to travel the country, always wandering up and down. Staying in pubs and hostels, old B&Bs. Walking the streets late at night, early in the morning and all throughout the day. Scouring the local papers, and the national papers, looking for some sign, for any clue at all. After about four years, something changed; the dreams changed. Suddenly they were not dreams of the past, they were dreams of modern times, of these times. And it was always the same dream, never changing and never diverging.

Arthur and Merlin were in a cave, as water came rushing in. This in itself was not so different, and no indicator that they were in modern times that Gwaine hadn’t noticed anything unusual for the first couple of nights. There was a bright light emanating from one of the cave walls, and it seemed as though Merlin was trying to bore into the rock. Arthur was shouting at him, something indistinct, but at the way he was gesticulating wildly at the incoming seawater, Gwaine could only assumed it was something along the lines of “we’ve got to get out of here, NOW”. As Arthur made a grab for Merlin, a bright white light burst out from the wall, and that’s when Gwaine saw himself emerge on the scene. As Merlin made a grab for something inside the light, Gwaine reached them. He held onto both of them tight, and swam towards the cave’s entrance, leading them both out into open water.

Under the light of the moon, Merlin holds an object up out of the water, and Arthur cheers. They’ve found what they’re looking for. Gwaine makes a motion towards the shore and they swim towards in, flopping exhausted onto the pebbles. And that’s when Gwaine notices, they’re all wearing _jeans_. This isn’t the past, it’s the future.

He told this whole story to a man he’d met in the pub last night, Alec was his name. He was friendly, but more than that he’d seemed familiar somehow. Normally Gwaine kept to himself, sure he was charming and he told jokes; he left people at ease, but he didn’t give anything of himself away. This man though, Alec, there was something about him that gave Gwaine a loose tongue, that compelled him to talk. He’d opened up to him, told Alec about his purpose for being in Cornwall. How he was sure the day was tomorrow, and that’s why he was here now, that it was finally his time. Alec had seemed very keen, eager to meet Arthur and Merlin, eager to help Gwaine. They’d arranged to meet the following afternoon and travel into the Tintagel site together. They would have to conceal themselves in or around the castle somewhere, as they planned on staying long after closing time, but the site was so large they wouldn’t have any problems with that. Who’d be mad enough to stay out on a cliff at night?

At around 8 o clock, as night time was starting to settle in, the two men were waiting on the cliffside, nearabouts to where Gwaine thought the cave should be. They’d gone up to higher ground to see if anything looked familiar to him, and as he turned away from Alec, glancing out to sea, that’s when the other man had struck. He must have picked up a rock, and the heavy object came crashing down heavily onto the back of Gwaine’s head, knocking him out cold.

As the recollection flooded into Gwaine’s thoughts, he realised they were fucked. Alec clearly couldn’t be trusted, and he was alone with Arthur and Merlin now, with all of Gwaine’s memories and dreams to add credence to his falsity. He picked up as his pace and started to run towards to where he knew the site entrance to be. He had to get off this cliff and find Arthur and Merlin as soon as possible.

* * *

Arthur, Merlin, and Alec head back to the village together and head towards the car. Arthur takes the cup from Merlin but leaves it concealed in his jacket, not bothering to secrete it away in the boot with their other items. Despite Merlin’s not-so-subtle signalling, he still isn’t sure this stranger can be trusted. The three men find a nearby B&B, and they check into two rooms; Arthur and Merlin in twin beds, Alec in the room next door. They eat a quick dinner in the next door pub, but they don’t talk. What they have to say, what comes next, is not something they want to be overheard discussing. Merlin knows he has glossed over the details to Arthur so far, but there’s no sugar coating it; there’s a war coming.

He tells Arthur as such once their alone in their room together.

“So we have the three items, what happens next? You do a spell and everything is ok?” Arthur’s tone is light, but Merlin can see right through it.

“We have to go to Edinburgh, and free the dragon.”

“The dragon, right, I’d forgot about him.” Arthur flops down onto his bed as if the matter is done.

“Arthur.” Merlin’s sharp tone makes him sit up again, all thoughts of sleep forgotten.

“Mordred will be there. He’s ready for a war.”

Arthur’s breath catches in his throat. He’d suspected it, based on his dreams of before, but hearing the words fall bluntly from Merlin’s lips really drives it home.

“Are we?” Arthur doesn’t feel ready. He’s never felt less ready for anything in his entire life.

“Yes.” But even Merlin doesn’t sound sure. “I have my magic, and you have the courage of a king. We can do this. The items we’ve collected, the cup, the stone, the sword, will give us the power to free the dragon. And with magic, courage, and a fucking great reptile on our side we can defeat Mordred.” And Merlin sounds so earnest that Arthur almost starts to believe him.

“Now would be a great time to tell me you did fencing at uni, or were part of LARPS.”

“What the hell is LARPS, Merlin?”

“Er, Live Action Role Play Society?”

“You mean where geeks dress up in capes and pretend to be elves?”

“Yes, that’s the one.”

“No Merlin, I wasn’t a member of LARPS.” His tone is full of disdain and the look he gives Merlin makes him feel like a recalcitrant school boy. “Please tell me you weren’t?”

Merlin huffed a small laugh. “Of course not. No fun pretending when you can do the real thing, is there? I was just wondering if you’d ever used a sword before.”

“Oh, right.” Arthur replies, but he already knows Merlin’s fears are unfounded. True, he had never held a sword before in his life until that night in the museum. But the moment he’d held Excalibur for the first time it had felt so impossibly right. His muscles knew what it was like to hold a sword, had carried the memory down all through the years. Arthur knew he would have no trouble at all wielding Excalibur like he’d been trained since birth.

They get ready for bed after that, too tired from earlier to discuss their plans anymore; they could wait until morning. As they fall asleep though, they are the only ones dreaming. Alec sits on the other side of the wall, hands enclosed round a blood red stone as he whispers words of power through the plaster, words that weave their way over the sleeping men. Both men dream that night.

Arthur dreams he’s on the battlefield. Excalibur is a heavy weight in his hands, and he can’t figure out how he’ll ever lift it above his head, how he’ll ever swing it against an enemy. The weight of expectation lies heavy on him, like it’s choking him. He’s nothing, he’s nobody, and now, what? He’s meant to fulfil a legend? It’s not right, and it’s not him. He’s just some guy. So why the fuck is there this great big destiny with his name on it? He can’t do it. He’s going to fail. He’s going to let everyone down, and then where will destiny be? He’s a fuck up, he’s fucked up. He always has been, he always will be. He’s not the stuff of legends, he’s not even noteworthy in one day and age, let alone across thousands of them. They’ve got the wrong guy, the wrong story, the wrong legend. He can’t do this.

Merlin dreams of Camelot. He dreams of Arthur sentencing him to death for the crime of sorcery. Arthur leaves Camelot, heading towards the battlefield. Merlin escapes and follows him there, sure that Arthur needs his help, sure that his king will forgive him. When he arrives though, he sees Arthur with Mordred, embracing the other man like a brother. Both turn towards him and they laugh; laugh at how pathetic he is, at how he thought he could change the course of history. It didn’t work the first time, why would it work now? History is always doomed to repeat itself. Mordred won then and he is destined to win again now, there was nothing he could do to change that.

In the morning both men wake exhausted, sure that no hope is left. There’s no point even trying.

* * *

As Gwaine leaves the site of Tintagel he knows exactly where to go, as if there’s some invisible string pulling him along, attaching him to Arthur and Merlin. Although, that’s what the dreams have been all along, he supposes. A tangible link between himself and the man he needs to be. As Gwaine arrives in the car park he sees a man he doesn’t recognise leading Arthur and Merlin towards a sports car. Gwaine’s breath catches in his throat and his feet stumble beneath him. _They’re real_. It’s real. It feels like his whole universe is titling on its axis, sending the world upside down. Every single dream he’s ever had is worth it now. He makes his feet start moving again and he can’t get there fast enough. He thinks he’s going to die, expire from pure nerves and exhilaration if he can’t lay his hands on these men, these two men that he’s been dreaming about his entire life.

“Arthur! Merlin!” He hails as he draws within earshot. They keep walking without so much as batting an eyelid, the unknown stranger herding them like a sheepdog.

“Hey, Arthur!” He shouts this time, and Arthur’s steps falter and then he grinds to a halt. Merlin stops a moment later when he realises that Arthur is no longer beside him. Both men turn around to look at him warily, but it’s the heat in the other man’s eyes that really throws Gwaine back. It’s like he’s trying to burn through Gwaine’s skin, like he wants to wipe him from existence with just the power of thought. And then Gwaine realises that it’s Alec. The man who knocked him out cold and left him on the cliff, and he can’t believe he didn’t recognise him at first. His head feels heavy though, like he’s been hit again, and it sounds like it’s full of bees; an incessant buzzing that leaves no room for thinking.

“Come on,” Alec says softly, and places a hand on both Arthur and Merlin. They turn at his command and walk the remaining few feet to their car. Something’s seriously wrong here and Gwaine feels sick to his stomach. The buzzing is growing impossibly loud, and Gwaine shakes his head as if he can shake it off.

“Alec! Leave them alone.” It’s a pathetic attempt to stop them, but it makes Alec turn around. He’s smirking.

“Gwaine, Gwaine, Gwaine,” he says softly, patronisingly, like he’s chastising a small child. “So trusting, so naive. There’s nothing you can do now.” And his eyes glow red.

Gwaine, however, has never been one to go down without a fight. And he’s never been good at listening to orders. He does the only thing he can think off; he steps up to Alec and punches him hard across the nose. There’s a sickening crunching noise, and suddenly blood is gushing forth. Alec doubles over, holding his hands up to his clearly broken nose.

“Shit! I’m going to kill you.” Except his eyes are no longer burning red, and the buzzing is gone too. The threat seems empty, diminished somehow, and Gwaine is about to hit him again when someone else does it for him. Arthur’s foot comes swinging into view, kicking Alec hard in the stomach. He falls to the floor, clutching alternately at his face and his ribs like he can’t decide which one hurts more.

“Merlin, get the rope out the boot.”

Merlin does as he’s told, and a minute later Alec is trussed up so tightly he can barely twitch a finger. The blood is gushing freely from his nose now, staining his white shirt a deep, dark crimson. Gwaine thinks it’s probably time for an introduction.

“I’m Gwaine. It’s nice to finally meet you.” He can see the question of ‘finally?’ etched clearly upon both Arthur’s and Merlin’s faces and he grins in response.

“I’m Arthur. And this is Merlin, but you seem to already know that.” He’s eying Gwaine with clear distrust, but he holds his hand out regardless and Gwaine shakes it in return. Gwaine doesn’t say anything in response, but it’s Merlin who breaks the silence for him instead.

“Thanks, for that. I don’t know what we would have done without you.”

“It was my pleasure, trust me. Why were you going with him?”

“We weren’t!” Merlin protested immediately. “Or well, we didn’t want to. He just, suggested it, and I couldn’t refuse.”

“Magic”, Arthur muttered softly to Merlin, and Gwaine gave a start. He’d seen magic in his dreams, but hadn’t been sure if it would be present in modern times as well. Apparently, it was. Which meant...

“Are you?”

“Am I what?” Arthur replied sternly.

“Not you princess, Merlin. Are you magic?”

A slight hiss of breath from Merlin was the only indication of the oddity of this question, but he replied nonetheless.

“Yes, yes I am.”

“Good, we’re going to need it.” Gwaine was grinning fully now, still not quite able to believe that all this was real. He gave himself a quick pinch on the arm, and the sharp pain was a welcome one.

“Need it for what, exactly?” Arthur voice was practically dripping with disdain, and he’d crossed his arms over his chest, obvious body language that Gwaine was not to be trusted, that he wasn’t allowed in.

“There’s a war coming, don’t you know.” Although he’d had no dreams of a modern war, as soon as Gwaine had recognised Alec something had clicked. War was coming, whether they wanted it to or not, and Alec was most definitely not on their side.

Arthur and Merlin shared a look. So they did know, thought Gwaine, but they obviously didn’t trust him. Merlin was the one to answer.

“Yes, we do know what. But why should we trust you? We obviously haven’t had the best luck so far.” He gave a wry smile, and Gwaine offered one in return and slowly unbuttoned his shirt. Both men gave him questioning glances, but as he drew back his shirt off his chest both sets of eyes went to the tattoo scrawled across his heart. No one spoke for over a minute, and it was Gwaine who finally broke the silence.

“I’ve been dreaming about you my entire life. I’m here to help.”

He was greeted with silence again, but Merlin quickly regained his wits. He didn’t question Gwaine any further, he merely stepped forward and placed a warm hand over Gwaine’s heart. He muttered three words under his breath and then stepped away, a brief flash of gold fading from his eyes.

“Well ok then,” Merlin declared and Gwaine broke into a smile.

“So where are we going?” Gwaine’s grin was so wide he was pretty sure they could see it in space. But he didn’t care. They were here, Arthur and Merlin were real, and he was with them. His whole life had been leading up to his moment, and he wasn’t going to let them down now.

“Edinburgh,” Merlin replied, a small smile playing at the corner of his mouth, but he didn’t elaborate further.

“Edinburgh? We doing some sightseeing?”

“Nope.” Merlin’s grin was as wide as Gwaine’s now. “We’re going to free a dragon.” Gwaine just laughed; of course they were.

Arthur clapped Gwaine on the back and steered him towards the car, and once they were all settled they started the long drive out of Cornwall. Along the way Gwaine told them about his life, the good and the bad, and also his encounter with Alec. Merlin and Arthur wouldn’t accept his apologies though. Alec had clearly been using magic, and Merlin suspected that he’d magically compelled Gwaine to reveal his secret. The fact that Gwaine had arrived to save Arthur and Merlin from whatever Alec had planned for them only served to cancel out any perceived wrong-doing on Gwaine’s part. As for Gwaine, he felt happy, happier than he had ever felt before in his life. He didn’t care if he died tomorrow, it would have all been worth it just for this moment of peace.

They arrived in Edinburgh late the next evening, and the blood red sunset lingering on the horizon set them all on edge. It felt like a portent of things to come, and as they hurried up the street to the hotel they constantly glanced around them. Although whether they were looking for Alec, or someone else to distrust, none could have said.

They had a quick dinner in the hotel bar, before ensconcing themselves in one room. They’d been discussing their game plan endlessly during their journey, and now the time had come to put it into action the tension in the room was almost palpable.

“One final time.” Arthur commanded, and then all ran through their respective parts, like actors learning lines.

At midnight they would head outside, and up Arthur’s Seat, taking with them the sword, the cup, and the stone. Merlin had also retrieved that same mysterious package from the car that Arthur had been tracking for a while. Merlin made no mention of it though so Arthur let him keep his secrets for now, he was sure he’d find out eventually. Once at the summit they would sit in a circle, each man possessing one item, and link hands. Merlin would then recite the spell that would rejuvenate the land, spilling a single drop of Arthur’s blood onto each item, and one for the land, to seal the magic and bind it to the earth, awakening the dragon. Arthur wasn’t particularly keen about this last part, not because losing that small amount of blood would harm him, but because Merlin had managed to instil in him a healthy respect (and fear) for blood magic. Merlin assured him it was necessary though and Arthur trusted Merlin, with his life if he needed to and his blood as well.

The night was dark once they began to ascend the hill away from the city lights, but the moon was bright above them, and the sky was littered with a million sparkling stars. It would have been beautiful, but the wind cut straight through their jackets and raised the hairs on their arms. Arthur didn’t want to admit it was more from fear than cold. Something felt wrong; an odd smell in the air that didn’t belong; a preternatural silence that seemed to block out all noise except the harsh exhalations of their own breathing.

They reached the summit without incident, but the longer that nothing happened the more nervous they became. Surely Mordred was watching them right now? Arthur was sure he could feel his eyes boring into the back of his head, but every time he turned around there was nothing to see. The seated themselves in a small circle, each man continuously looking around then, trying to see into the darkness back down the hill, and Merlin began the spell. As Merlin carried on in that same language Arthur couldn’t understand he started to feel the exhaustion of the last week creeping up on him, his eyelids drooping heavily.

“Magic!” Merlin’s voice was loud in the darkness, and Arthur jolted awake. Merlin had lifted the cup up before him, but as he reached over to Arthur to draw the first drop of blood, all hell broke loose. A ring of fire sprang up around then, and Mordred’s mocking voice travelled through the darkness.

“Merlin, oh Merlin. You really didn’t think you could win, did you?”

That’s when they finally saw him. Mordred was dressed entirely in black, his pale face reflecting the white pallor of the moon. He was flanked by Alec who was smirking once again. That wasn’t what troubled Arthur, though. Behind the two men was a swirling mass of darkness. Darker than night itself, the mass had no distinct shape. It swirled around Mordred almost as it were caressing him like a lover. One moment it looked like a pride of lions, ready to strike; the next like a murder of crows aching to peck their eyes out.

“Do you like my Darkness, Arthur?”

Arthur started at hearing his own name.

“They answer to me, and I can tell you now, they’re hungry for your blood.”

All three men paled at this remark, and Mordred lifted one hand in response.

“Kill.” He commanded simply, and the Darkness moved as one.

Arthur didn’t know what he’d expected; teeth, claws, or beaks, but this wasn’t it. Burning, icy cold burning, clawing down into his very soul. It felt like his life was being ripped out of him, and he couldn’t breathe. As he dropped to his knees he felt Gwaine do the same next to him. Merlin alone remained upright, and as he finally drew that mystery item out of his jacket he screamed at Arthur.

“Finish the spell! The blood Arthur, your blood!”

It took Arthur a moment to respond, but Gwaine was already moving, withdrawing his penknife from his jacket to break Arthur’s skin. Merlin was facing Mordred, now holding out a weather beaten staff in front of him, mouth already screaming words of power, eyes raging gold.

“Magic!” Gwaine shouted, and he let a single drop of Arthur’s blood fall into the cup that Merlin had thrown in their direction.

“Strength!” He shouted next, and let a drop fall onto the stone which he was still holding.

A thunderclap accompanied the splash of the blood drop, and Arthur didn’t hear Gwaine’s next shout. He followed the movement of his lips though, and he knew what word he wasn’t saying regardless. Courage. He let a drop fall onto Excalibur, the blood disappearing into the metal like a single drop of blood in the ocean.

Arthur and Gwaine spoke the final line of the spell together. Merlin had assured them he wasn’t needed, that the magic was now in Arthur’s blood not the words themselves, not his magic. It was lucky, because Merlin was far too occupied with Mordred, spells flashing between them like lightening. The whole hilltop was swarming with the Darkness, and all three men were panting, struggling to draw enough breath into their lungs through the icy grasp of the Darkness.

“Through time we have come, and through time we will pass.” Arthur couldn’t even hear his own voice, let alone Gwaine’s, but he could see their lips moving in tandem. “Let this blood be our payment, let the land live again.” At ‘again’ Arthur let a final drop of blood fall down to the earth at his feet. The reaction was instantaneous.

The earth broke apart beneath his feet, sending Gwaine and Arthur flying in opposite directions. The chasm in the earth continued to widen, and a deep red glow was emanating from within. Arthur struggled onto his knees, trying to see what was happening, and he thought he could hear a noise like great sails unfurling emanating from the hole.

Moments later a giant dark shape rose up out of the abyss, blowing great wind currents across Arthur’s face, buffeting him.

It was the dragon. A real life, living, breathing dragon. And it was breathing fire.

Arthur dove for cover as the first jet of fire burst forth from the great beast, but he felt no heat from the flame. The fire tore through the Darkness, and the screams he could hear chilled him to the bone. It sounded like victims of the most excruciating torture, but Arthur could only feel gladness that it was being emitted by the Darkness. The dragon continued to tear through the Darkness until nothing was left of them, not so much as a feather of a single crow. The dragon’s fire continued to burn across the hilltop, and the brilliance of its redness was tinged in blue and gold.

Arthur looked around for Merlin, and found him towering over Mordred, as the other man lay cowering on the ground.

“It’s over, Mordred! You can’t win now. I don’t have to kill you though, it doesn’t have to be that way.” Arthur could plainly hear the pleading note in Merlin’s voice. He didn’t want to have to kill Mordred.

Mordred merely snarled in response, and tried to twist out from underneath the butt of the staff. Arthur saw Merlin close his eyes briefly, in reluctance, before he stepped back. The dragon landed down beside him as a great bolt of lightning rent the sky, striking Mordred straight through the heart. The defeated man didn’t move again, and as Arthur approached closer he knew he was dead. It was over. Merlin’s head was bowed in regret and Arthur laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. He would be alright, they all would be now.

"We did it." Merlin said, turning to give Arthur an exhausted smile. "Can you feel the magic?"

* * *

That night, for the first time ever, Gwaine slept peacefully in his bed without a single dream flitting through his subconscious. His mind knew that there was no need to dream anymore, that their purpose had been fulfilled. But this was just the beginning, after all.


End file.
